


give and take

by sinelanguage



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Child Death, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinelanguage/pseuds/sinelanguage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Officer Jean Kirstein knew that, no matter who his new partner was, it would be better than working with Eren Jaeger. And, for a while, he'd say it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trigger Lock

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to write emotional scenes about Dunkin Donuts. Also, the drink Jean eventually gets is a Dunkacinno. 
> 
> Thanks to Katie for helping me edit this, esp. the action scenes. 
> 
> Sami, you've never had Dunkin Donuts which is very, very, bad.
> 
> now with some wonderful fanart here! http://allexche.tumblr.com/post/77416865582/give-take-picture-is-done-took-ages

When Jean transferred from the NYPD, largest police force in the United States, to some small-ass police force somewhere upstate, he’d anticipated that it would take a while for him to adjust. Lack of equipment, lack of real cases, lack of coherency; lack of everything that made the NYPD function smoothly. He was even moving to the town in late October, prime teenage shenanigans time.

He should have been much, much more worried about the ability to get along with the rest of the force. Chief Erwin insisted, much to the taxpayer’s dismay, that every cop worked in pairs. With an odd number on the force for the ten months Jean was on the force, Jean was stuck with being the awkward third wheel to Eren and Mikasa’s team.

He didn’t work well with either of them. Eren’s unwavering determination to prosecute criminals- every single criminal- contrasted with Jean’s pragmatic approach of letting the unsolvable and minor cases go.

Working with Mikasa shouldn’t have been nearly as bad. Despite her being attached to Eren at the hip, she had a calm head on her shoulders and was a better shot than anyone on the force. Unfortunately, as most of Jean’s anger was directed at Eren and most of Mikasa’s anger was directed at those angry at Eren, most patrols ended in Jean being locked in the patrol car and Mikasa taking down criminals herself.

Now, however, the department had a new recruit, Officer Marco Bodt. He had some experience working at an even smaller upstate town, and so far through their first patrol, seemed like a grade-a boy scout. Jean, however, still felt weary, and thus felt the need to test and patronize him.

“Alright, newbie,” Jean said, leaning on the console of the patrol car and pointing his chin outside the windshield. Outside, an oblivious teenager stood shaking a can of paint. “You’re going to need some lessons before you pull over and arrest that kid.”

Marco sighed,  “Jean, I’ve done this before, I transferred in from a smaller force-”

Jean began his lesson despite Marco’s protests, “That’s _Officer_ Kirstein. So, the key to arresting graffiti teenagers mostly lies in the approach. If you just drive up and yell, they’ll probably be startled and just toss their spray can at your patrol car-”

“-That sounds like it’s happened before,” Marco interjected. It had, in fact, happened before, as with a myriad of spray can related incidents, none of them resulting in an arrest. Then, Marco ignored Jean’s advice and drove up to the sidewalk. The teenager still hadn’t noticed the patrol car.

Jean opened his mouth to retort to Marco’s comment and actions, but closed it when he looked on in confusion as the near-criminal teenager hadn’t moved. Sure, he’d taken off the cap of the spray can, but he hadn’t made an attempt to flee.

Marco had unbuckled his seatbelt to talk to the kid, but Jean just rolled down his window, ignored his own advice, and shouted, “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The teenager turned, startled, and he didn’t look like a teenager at all. His gaunt face twisted into fear, and he tossed the can in surprise. Luckily, he caught the can; unluckily, as he caught the can, he sprayed himself in the face.

He emitted a ghoul-like screech, and Marco jolted out of the car to try and help.

Jean opened the patrol door after him, trying to leave the car while still buckled in. By the time he’d gotten out of the seatbelt and the car, Marco was guiding the spray-painted teenager into the car.

“Just- drive to the nearest water fountain to get the paint out,” Marco said, sliding into the backseat. The teenager, still wailing, now clung to Marco’s arm. Jean winced at the noise.

Walking around the front of the car, Jean replied, “Bodt, this is something someone dies and gets a Darwin Award for. We’d be doing a great deed for society if we let him die.” Marco glared, and it would have been intimidating had he not been defending a kid who sprayed himself in the eyes. Despite his comment, Jean started driving to the nearest water fountain, a nice, public location right next to a children’s park.

During the drive, Marco had managed to coax a name out of the teenager- Dazz- and despite his looks, was still in high school. The teenager clung to Marco still, occasionally trying to open his eyes to look at him but, inevitably, coating them with more spray paint. This lead to more screaming, more encouraging words, and more desire for Dazz to look at his hero.

The cycle only ended as Jean found the nearest water fountain at the local park where small, innocent children pranced around, pushing each other on swings and off of play structures. Marco led Dazz over to a water fountain to rinse the paint out of his eyes as Jean sat reticent in the car.

As Marco helped Dazz to the water fountain to get the spray paint out of his eyes, Jean stared out the windshield, sighed, then called in the commotion into the radio. There was some immature laughing on the other end and a quip about how Jean would never make an actual arrest. Jean responded with a quick “Shut the fuck up” instead of an ordinary quip. He focused most of his attention looking outside at Marco.

Despite Dazz’s screaming scaring off any occupants on the playground, Marco handled the situation pretty well. Shuffling Dazz to a water fountain, Marco helped clean the spray paint out of Dazz’s eyes, then calmed the kid down enough to coax out his parents’ number. After a long, awkward conversation with Dazz’s parents, Marco waited on the park bench with Dazz to make sure the teenager was still alright.

Jean was marginally impressed with how Marco handled the situation, and let that be an excuse to not go help him. Instead, he waited until Dazz’s parents came, picked him up, and Marco returned to the car. By this time, Jean had his head rested against the wheel.

Marco sat down and looked at Jean. “That was an interesting first day,” Marco stated, carefully surveying Jean’s reaction, “Good thing that’s probably abnormal, right?”

Jean didn’t lift his head from the steering wheel. He didn’t even turn to face Marco. He just sighed, shook his head, then said, “Welcome to the force, Marco.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, they had to meet up for coffee before work so Jean could explain proper protocol for arrests. Apparently, Captain Levi had requested that they do it, but do it on their own time to not waste any more taxpayer money than they already had.  

And, so, the awkward coffee meet-up at Dunkin’ Donuts was born. Jean came five minutes late, looking like death warmed over. Marco had already arrived, but had the patience to wait for Jean before ordering.

Because of the early hours, they ordered their coffee and food pretty quickly- Marco got black coffee and a donut with sprinkles, while Jean got black coffee and a plain, glazed donut. Jean had tried to escape to the coffee station for a clandestine sugar mission, but choosing where they were sitting outweighed the desire to make his coffee no longer taste like coffee.

“We’re sitting over there,” Jean announced, pointing with his boring donut to a table opposite the door next to a wall. Marco went along with it, assuming debating the selection would be more trouble than it was worth.

As soon as Jean sat down, his back to the wall, he began the protocol speech, “Captain Levi has a stick up his ass, so we have to follow his rules which are as follows.” Jean counted on his fingers as he said, “One, don’t yell at people who aren’t yet criminals. Two, don’t watch as people spray paint themselves in the eyes. Three, don’t take injured people to children’s parks, take them to hospitals.”

Looking satisfied, Jean took a small sip of his coffee and a large bite of donut. Marco tilted his head, “Jean, I’m pretty sure the first two you did, not me.”

Jean glared, and the glare was unsurprisingly ineffective on Marco. Grimacing at Marco’s response, Jean lifted his coffee cup up again, pretending to take a large gulp. He kept the cup to his face, drinking bit by bit of his black coffee, his expression sour the entire time. The conversation lulled into silence, and Marco fidgeted.

“Did you plan on spending half a minute talking about protocol then the next ten eating donuts in awkward silence?” he asked, looking at Jean with a bemused expression.

Jean set his coffee down on the table; some spilled out, over the rim of the cup. Not able to think of a witty response early in the morning, he shrugged and gave a noncommittal grunt.

Tearing off a piece of his donut, Marco debated trying to kindle some conversation or just let Jean inevitably fall asleep on the table. Deciding for the former, he asked, “So, what made you want to become a police officer?”

Jean groaned dramatically, swishing his coffee tactically so more spilled out. “Out of all the first date questions, you ask that,” he said, avoiding the question and taking the smallest sip of coffee.

After a moment of silence, with Marco continuing to tear off pieces of donuts while staring at Jean, Jean caved. “I didn’t get into law school, so it was the next best thing to do with a criminal justice degree. You know, work for the NYPD. Then shit happened, got tired of my shitty roommate, and moved to this rinky-dink town,” Jean said, then took a dramatic bite of donut.

Blinking, Marco processed the information, then said, “You don’t strike me as someone who would do poorly enough in your studies to not get into law school, or someone who’d just quit because you had a bad roommate. You’d probably be the bad roommate.”

Jean looked over his shoulder, awkwardly realized he was sitting against the wall, then turned back. “I didn’t get into law school because I didn’t apply,” Jean said, looking past Marco, “After all those years in undergrad, I finally realized I’d make a shit lawyer. I’m good at arguing but not persuading, so I’d just be left with shitty cases and no comfy lawer life. There’s not really a point to being a lawyer, other than that.”

Picking up his donut and shoving it in his mouth, he chewed. He looked off to the side uncomfortably and, before he’d finished chewing, continued, “And you underestimate the assholery of New Yorkers.”

Humming at the answer, Marco took a sip of his coffee as he contemplated a response. “Yeah, you wouldn’t have made a good lawyer,” Marco agreed, and Jean unintentionally spilled his drink in surprise.

Before Marco could explain himself, Jean avoided hearing the reasoning and turned the conversation back on Marco, “Your turn. Why the hell did you decide to join the force if you couldn’t even arrest a vandalizing teenager?”

“He didn’t even get to vandalizing-”

“-avoiding the question-”

“-and I was going to before you scared him into injuring himself-”

“-you were probably going to give him a stern look and shake your head like a disapproving mother hen.”

“I don’t think chickens shake their heads,” Marco retorted, and Jean shrugged. The string of rebuttals had ended, leaving Marco to either avoid the question or answer it.

“I always idolized cops growing up,” Marco said, ignoring the snort the response produced from Jean, “And, well, I guess I wouldn’t have really arrested him because it’s more about protecting people, isn’t it? At least for me.”

“That is the most idealistic, boy scout bullshit I have ever heard,” Jean said, pointing the uneaten half of his donut at Marco, “Should have been a firefighter if you just wanted that.”

Marco laughed lightly in response, not bothering to deny it, and Jean looked let down that he hadn’t gotten any sort of reaction. He finished the rest of his donut then said, “And, to get back to what you avoided earlier, it’s not a bad thing that you wouldn’t be a good lawyer. Lawyers aren’t exactly the best people, anyway.”

Jean paused, contemplating the notion, then smirked, “That’s the first time you’ve actually insulted someone since I’ve known you.”

“To be fair, two days isn’t much time to know someone.”

“ _To be fair_ , we met a kid who _spray painted himself in the eyes._ ”

 

* * *

 

 

“Alright- I’m going to give you a tour of the department and the lowdown on the people in the department,” Jean stated, standing near the water cooler. Because most people in the force survived off of coffee, no one really bothered to put the water cooler together. The water jug sat on top, perpetually unused. It provided a useful place to gossip, but that was about it. Marco had been trying to put it together before Jean interrupted.

“Jean, I’ve already met everyone yesterday, I don’t need another-” Marco tried half-heartedly, but Jean, unsurprisingly, cut him off.

“-you need my opinion and advice on everyone. In a month I’ll have a year under my belt, so I know things.” Jean leaned against the wall, then pointed toward a barely visible hallway, “If someone ever asks you to go get something from forensics, don’t. Hanji will keep you down there for days, and you’ll have to sit around and admire the shitty equipment until one of the interns has pity on you and asks Hanji a question and they get distracted. Normally, Bean cracks first, so just stare at him until he pipes up.”

Marco nodded along to Jean’s rantings, adding in the appropriate conversation fillers to keep Jean moving and, hopefully, ending. He focused half his attention on Jean, the other half on the water cooler. Despite Jean talking, he was still dead-set on fixing it.

“Ymir’s the local criminal consultant and Christa’s her handler. If either of them are in, don’t try to be pleasant with Christa. She is a very pleasant person,” Jean paused, considering the phrasing, “But Ymir and her have some possessive relationship I wouldn’t touch with a thirty foot pole.”

Again, Marco hummed in agreement, listening but at the same time wondering how he could flip over the water tank without Jean noticing.

“Stay away from Jaeger, he’s a complete idiot and is going to work himself out. He’s only in it to catch criminals and has no concept of when he should stop. He’d probably be dead if Mikasa wasn’t there.” Marco had his hands on the bottom of the water cooler, ready to turn it over.

Then, Jean motioned toward a missing child poster on the wall and, in a hushed whisper added, “And speaking of Jaeger, don’t mention Berik to him or the detectives. All of them are convinced there’s still hope for the kid, but he’s been missing for more than a month.”

Marco had turned the water cooler bottle over at this point. As soon as Jean finished his hushed ranting the thing made an awkward and convicting bubbling noise, alerting everyone of its presence. Jean raised an eyebrow, and Marco gave a sheepish grin.

Jean grumbled, “Were you even listening to what I said?”  

Marco looked over his shoulder to make sure Eren wasn’t approaching then said, “For what it’s worth, I see what you mean. If they’re going to wear themselves out on the case, they can’t really be a benefit for anything else. I wouldn’t say it’s helpless, but at the same time, they need some perspective.”

Jean blinked at Marco, slightly startled at the agreement. However, he didn’t get to respond to that note in particular. The gurgling water cooler had attracted attention, and, much to Jean’s irritation, people decided to investigate.

By people, he meant the slacking, lower-level officers of the  K-9 force, Connie and Sasha.  

“And here are the irritating police dog people, Connie and Sasha,” Jean deadpanned, and Connie punched him in the arm.

“You mean the hilariously irritating police dog people,” he said, fetching water for himself. He waited until his cup was full, drank it as fast as he could, then shoved it under again before anyone else could have water.

Sasha, unperturbed by Connie’s actions, simply added on, “And he means the hilariously irritating police dog people who are also _motorcops_.”

Marco laughed, and Jean nudged him in the ribs, muttering “Don’t encourage them.” That just made Marco laugh more.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite Jean not being a morning person, when Marco asked if he wanted to go get Dunkin Donuts before work again a week after the first time, Jean agreed. Maybe this time he could come away unscaved by black coffee.

As the two stood in line, Jean shifted his weight from foot to foot nervously. His need to not be seen drinking sugar-filled coffee was slowly surpassing his need for sugar-filled coffee. Before he could decide, Marco is nudging him in the side, “Hey, do you think we could split a box of Munchkins?”

“What?” Jean said eloquently, standing still for the first time since he got in line.

“You know- the donut holes, you think we could get a mixed lot and split them?”

Jean still looked confused but went with it, “As long as you order them.”

Leaving Marco to worry about ordering the donuts, Jean continued his internal strife over what to order as a drink. Eventually, he decided that he couldn’t handle faking enjoyment in black coffee for a second day. He ordered a drink that was half coffee and half hot chocolate. Marco noticed but had the tact not to say anything.

Both of them sat down at the same spot, with Jean sitting against the wall and Marco across from him. Marco had tried to sit where Jean had last time, but Jean fussed, mumbled something about seeing the door, and shoved Marco off the chair. Trying to act as if that wasn’t childish, Jean sipped his drink much more heartily than he had the previous time.

Jean picked out a jelly-filled donut hole before Marco even had a chance to find one himself. He popped it into his mouth and, while still chewing, said, “So, Marco, what are your shitty conversation topics for today’s date?”

Marco picked at the box himself, looked for a jelly-filled donut hole but, not wanting to dig to the bottom of the box, settled for a chocolate one, “You can’t say you didn’t enjoy donuts last time, you’re here again.”

“Whatever,” came Jean’s retort, and then he defiled the box for more jelly-filled donut holes, “And you’re avoiding thinking of a conversation topic.” Marco looked forlorn in the loss of another jelly-filled donut, but Jean didn’t notice.

“So are you,” Marco said, then took a long drawl of his coffee. Jean looked slightly pained at even watching Marco down the bitter, unsweetened coffee, so he took a drawl of his own sugary mess.

After a long pause, mostly filled with Marco picking out non-jelly-filled donuts and Jean finding all of them, Marco asked, “What do you do in your spare time?”

“Eat donuts.” Despite forcing Marco to create conversation, Jean wasn’t doing much to foster it himself. Marco raised an eyebrow, then rested his head on his hands. He stared intently at Jean, enough to make him squirm uncomfortably.

“Alright, alright,” Jean mumbled, looking off to the side. “My turn in the shitty conversation game. What TV shows do you watch?”

Marco picked at the remaining donut holes, and again settled for one that wasn’t jelly-filled. “This is going to seem really ridiculous,” Marco said, and Jean had already prepared an upturned lip and raised eyebrow, “But I really like police procedurals.”

It was worse than Jean had anticipated. He groaned, placing his head in his hands, “You have the worst taste. You can only watch those ironically and even then, they have the same plot every damn week!”

Marco rolled his eyes, but kept the conversation alive, thinking it was better than more awkward interrogation-style small talk. “They’re not bad- sometimes they have interesting characters-” another dramatic groan from Jean, “And it’s not like they’re the only shows with the same plot line! House is basically a medical procedural, they’ve been repeating the same episode plot for years!”

Jean didn’t respond immediately, and in fact looked rather put-off. Marco paused to consider what he said. “Oh my god, you like House, don’t you.”

“House is a fucking great show,” Jean retorted, “The guy’s philosophy is actually interesting-”

“-so you like it because, despite being ridiculous, it has interesting characters.”

“House isn’t ridiculous, it’s the best damn show that Fox has ever produced,” Jean tried, but Marco wasn’t convinced. He just gave Jean a humoring nod, and Jean wasn’t having any of it. “God damn it- one of these days, we’re taking a fucking day off and watching House.”

“You’re seriously that adamant that House is a great show,” Marco balked, not aware that anyone thought much of the show after the fifth season.

“Mark it in your calendar- September 30th, watching House.”

“You already have a day picked out?”

Jean practically rammed his coffee cup into his face, then glared over the rim at Marco.

“Jean, I’m not going to mark off a day on my calendar to watch House. Or take a day off to watch House.”

Then, Marco watched as Jean ate the donut hole he had, picked up the box, shuffled it around, and collected the last remaining jelly-filled donuts.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he sighed, “Did you really just do that? I haven’t even had one of them.”

After smirking at Marco, Jean shoved the donuts he’d collected into his mouth, all at once. Marco groaned, then pulled the donut box back to at least salvage the remains.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Marco went into a meeting with Levi to request leave. He’d tried not to, but Jean kept texting insisting on it, oddly eager for someone who was dragged to Dunkin Donuts, and Marco finally agreed.

He did not, however, have a plan on how to ask Levi for a day off. He’d tried to get Jean to team up with him, but Jean just texted with the laconic response of ‘already have leave.’ Then, he tried to schedule a House marathon for a day they already had off, but Jean just insisted on the thirtieth. Seeing as September 30th was, apparently, his only option, Marco figured he could just go into Levi’s office, tell him some fake reason, and run off.

It wasn’t as simple, as Marco stood and looked down at their department head. Levi looked up, his expression bland and unwavering, as Marco’s transitioned from confident to sheepish to guilty.

“I need to take leave on the thirtieth,” Marco blurted, “Family emergency.”

Levi blinked, and Marco winced at the movement, “I didn’t know people planned family emergencies a month in advance.”

“Oh,” Marco said. There could have been reasonings to plan a family emergency, like surgery dates, but unfortunately for Marco no ideas came. He scratched under his nose, and tried to focus on something that wasn’t Levi’s unmoving, soul-crushing stare.

However, the stare wasn’t as soul crushing as before. It was difficult to tell, but Levi’s eyebrows were less furrowed and his frown less harsh.

“Kirstein put you up to this.” Levi didn’t even bother making it a question, “That date in particular. He’s dragging you off to do something idiotic.”

Marco balked, and stumbled over some more protests, mostly trying to defend Jean’s actions without adding in that they were taking off leave to watch House.

Levi watched for a while, reading Marco’s reaction. Then, he turned back to his computer and said, “Fine. Have the paperwork on my desk by noon.”

Jaw slacked in shock, Marco couldn’t respond for a while. “Yes sir,” Marco finally said, and then added on a hurried “Thank you” before fleeing.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco tapped on the patrol car door, anticipating another one of Jean’s mentoring rantings before they started another patrol. Normally, Jean would begin all their patrols with the same meandering speeches about what to do and then would proceed to break all the rules he presented.

This time, an awkward silence hung over the car, and Marco was left to poll Jean for possible problems.

“Finally run out of advice for me, eh?” Jean didn’t respond, only continued to stare out the patrol car with an iron-clad grip on his door.

Marco continued drumming his fingers, “You can drive, if you want to-”

“No,” Jean spoke, for the first time the entire patrol, “It’s a Sunday, right?”

Blinking, Marco tried to come up with how that fact could in any way relate to Jean’s current mood. “I’m really not sure how that’s supposed to be intimidating,” Marco said, “It’s just a Sunday.”

“Right,” Jean seemed slightly relaxed by this remark. His grip loosened, and he shook his head. Then, he plowed into his normal routine, “Right. And you know, in twenty minutes church begins. Which, whatever. Church. But in about five minutes, everyone’s grandma will be trying to get to church.”

Marco stopped drumming his fingers, and gave Jean a skeptical look, “And you were acting like you just witnessed death because you’re terrified of grandmothers on the road?”

Jean paused. He then turned to Marco slowly, finally focusing on something other than the windshield. With overdone dramatics, Jean whispered, “You have never had to give an old lady a ticket, have you.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d have any sort of discretion in ticketing,” Marco replied, smiling slightly. He wasn’t going to doubt Jean’s ridiculous fear of Sundays and grandmothers, but that didn’t mean he’d think it was any less ridiculous.

“I don’t,” Jean stated, “But everyone else does. Marco, I am the only one in this entire, shitty little town to arrest grandmas on their way to church. Eren never works on Sundays! And I’ve run into the same ones! Multiple times!“

Marco raised an eyebrow, then turned to the window to try and hide his laughing. “This is serious,” Jean hissed, “Quit laughing, you’re not the plague of the elderly in this society!”

Despite the fact that Marco’s laughing only increased as Jean continued talking, Jean talked over it, “This time- hey, listen to me- you’re going to pull over one little old lady on her way to church. One. I’ll pretend to not be here and you’ll get written down in their ledgers as a dick.”

Marco looked over to Jean, and Jean looked over to Marco with a grim expression. “I’ll humor you,” Marco said, “If we see an elderly lady speeding, I’ll make chase and give her a ticket.”

Jean didn’t seem fully appeased; he wanted a promise that Marco would take down a grandmother so he wouldn’t be the only one to give them tickets. However, he accepted it, thinking they would inevitably run into some grandmas.

They ran into zero speeding church-goers. Everyone, much to Jean’s misery, had decided that, for once, they did not need to speed their way to church. And, after the church rush hours ended, Jean, much to Marco’s amusement, sulked.

“I’m sure I’ll give a grandmother a speeding ticket eventually,” Marco tried to appease Jean, and Jean just sunk further into his seat.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco had always figured that the shooting range would be this dramatic place, where grizzled, Vin Diesel-looking cops would shoot bullseyes while giving new recruits advice from their own youth.

Instead, he got Jean Kirstein in ridiculously oversized pink earmuffs, missing every other shot. He had sworn, multiple times, that the pink ones had the best noise-canceling effects, and he needed to preserve his hearing.

Most of the time was spent with Jean hitting the target occasionally and Marco hitting the target better. Jean would always anticipate the shot, wincing before he’d fully pulled the trigger and messing up his aim. Marco would try to give advice, but because of Jean’s earmuffs, most of their advice was just them screaming ‘what’ at each other at increasing volume.

Marco figured if Jean could actually hear his criticism, the conversation wouldn’t go much differently.

Eventually, both of them gave up on shooting practice. Jean had decided this would be the time to recover from his terrible shooting practice, and show Marco how to correctly clean his gun.

After some uncharacteristically quiet and toned-down instructions, Jean paused and said, “You’re a good shot.”

Marco stopped in surprise, and raised an eyebrow. Jean shrugged; he wasn’t going to repeat it again.

“You sort of have to be,” Marco said, “I mean- I don’t want to actually have to use my gun. If there’s a way out of it, if the culprit seems like they’ll be willing to compromise, I don’t even want to have to take it out.”

Jean didn’t provide an unhelpful quip, so Marco continued, “I don’t want to be rash about it, either. If I do have to shoot, I want to know I’ll hit my target and not something- or someone- else.”

“Yeah,” Jean said, looking at his own gun. He hadn’t put it back together again. Marco looked at Jean with a concerned expression, but Jean just shrugged it off, “That’d be a good plan.”

 

* * *

 

 

Dunkin Donuts had, reluctantly, then hesitantly, then eagerly, become a thing. They’d get the same coffees, the same box of munchkins, and the same seat. Once, some study-driven teenager had tried to steal Jean’s spot, and he pulled the angry cop stare technique. Marco had laughed awkwardly, gave the teen a hesitant smile, then pointed toward another seat.

What had been awkward probing of conversation topics had evolved into imploring probing of opinions, not out of the need for conversation but curiosity on both men’s parts.

“Now that you’ve got some time under your belt, what do you think of the department?” Jean asked, stealing the top jelly filled donuts yet again.

“Well,” Marco rubbed under his nose, “My partner’s a jerk.”

Jean picked up a donut hole and tossed it at Marco’s forehead. It was a very easy target, and the donut bounced off, leaving a glaze mark smack in the middle.

“Hey, kidding! Don’t waste the donuts,” Marco leaned over to pick up the projectile, setting it on top a napkin. “And, everyone’s sort of odd but they’re all good at what they do. Some in more of a roundabout way than others, but I think the force is functional enough.”

Jean snorted; it wasn’t exactly the answer he wanted. “Come on. You have to complain about someone. Something that hasn’t met your expectations. Eren, Ymir, _someone_.”

“Honestly, Eren’s not that bad,” Marco tried, and Jean didn’t let him even continue the sentence.

“He got Braun’s hopes up that they had a lead on the Berik case just yesterday, and look how that turned out.” Jean took an angry swig of his coffee, and it dripped down his chin.

Marco sighed, and tried to divert the conversation, “Well, I didn’t anticipate your criminal consultant and handler to just be a covering for them actually being criminals,”

Spitting out part of his donut, Jean narrowed his eyes at Marco, “Seriously?”

Marco shrugged, looked at Jean’s scrutinizing face, then said with less conviction than he shrugged with, “Yes?”

“It’s just. Most people only figure Ymir’s the criminal until Christa gives some impassioned speech on why crowbars are the least effective way to break into anything,” Jean said, “And I’ve been with you every time you’ve met them, so no chances for speeches.”

Marco sipped at his coffee, not revealing how, exactly, he figured it out. Jean was impressed that Marco, at the least, had a good enough read on people to understand the reality of Ymir and Christa’s work. He waited for an answer as to how, and eventually got impatient, “And you’re fine with working with two criminals?”

“Well, I did meet them outside of your ranting. I don’t think they’re the type of people to try and maliciously ruin others’ lives, so they’re probably in it for the adrenaline rush. I mean, it’s not a good thing, but if they help catch worse criminals with their advice I think it’s fine.” Marco managed to sneak a jelly-filled donut out of the box while Jean wasn’t looking.

Jean looked slightly less impressed than before, “Isn’t it a bit naive to trust them? They’re criminals.”

Marco retorted with, “Isn’t it a bit naive for the department to trust them?”

“I’m pretty sure all the higher-ups know that they mostly just rob department stores and spray paint the next district over. We don’t like the district’s department, so we let it slide,” Jean said, then, after some hesitation, picked out a chocolate donut hole. He was under the impression that Marco liked all the donuts he did. In reality, they were evenly split, other than the jelly-filled ones.

Marco hummed in reply, and took a jelly donut off the top of the pile, surprised that Jean hadn’t eaten it himself.

 

* * *

 

 

The next week, both Jean and Marco continued their normal-ish routine of patrolling, passing out tickets to the elderly when Jean drove, and never actually arresting teenagers when Marco drove. However, they had been given the lucrative opportunity to change their tallies of zero teen arrests, but only because no one else wanted it.

They’d been passed this opportunity during the relaxed office hours where everyone who wasn’t on patrol gossiped and listened to the radio scanner by the now working water cooler. For the most part, it was just commentary on the various misdemeanors of everyone in the office. Marco, for the most part, refrained from comments; Jean mostly commented on Eren; Connie and Sasha would pick on everyone other than Captain Levi.

Jean had been in the middle of a seemingly endless rant about how Eren was going to drive the detective force to the ground with his pursuit of a useless case, when suddenly he stopped. Marco looked over, trying to figure out why the hell Jean had decided to stop ranting.

He was met with the image of everyone around the water cooler with one finger on their nose. Jean looked livid, and then defeated. Connie and Sasha cheered, and Franz and Hannah behind them sighed with relief.

“We’re stuck with a noise complaint off of Amber Way,” Jean said, saw Marco’s confused look, and continued, “Despite it only being one in the fucking afternoon, it’s going to be filled with vomiting, drunk teenagers.”

And full of vomiting, drunk teenagers it was. Despite the sun being up, the house had strobe lights set up, with wasted teenagers sprawled over the lawn. The house blasted party music from cheap, tinny speakers, and it wasn’t even good party music.

No one seemed to notice when they pulled up, so Jean looked over to Marco, smirked, and turned on the police sirens.

Everything turned to hell. The sprawling mess of teenagers sprung up, and looking like a kicked-over ant farm, each individual fled in a different direction. Most ran lopsidedly, with the occasional teen falling in a heap and refusing to continue.

Jean didn’t appear to be taking the thing too seriously, which was somewhat of a relief to Marco. Despite it being his job to arrest the idiotic teenagers, it would have left the bad taste of a stain on some dumb kid’s record. They hadn’t hurt anyone, after all, unless you counted the eardrums of neighbors.

“Half of these fucks have been in jail already,” Jean commented, seeming to understand what Marco was thinking, and Marco raised an eyebrow, “So don’t pull your see the best in everyone Disney shit and hesitant in cuffing anyone.”

In reality, Jean didn’t know if these kids were repeat offenders; he just figured maybe, if at least Marco took this seriously, they’d arrest someone.

It didn’t work out so well. Jean had almost caught a particularly distressed teenager, but before he could make the arrest he slipped in a rather large pile of vomit. He could still feel the liquid dripping off his back, and tried to ignore it as he continued throughout the house.

Throughout the place, Jean never ran into another actual teenager, just abandoned bottles, the stench of vomit, and an odd scurrying sound. He’d tried to investigate the sound and ignore everything else, but it was coming from the ceiling of the one-story house.

When he met up with Marco, to Jean’s relief, Marco dragged around two kids handcuffed together. “They’re over twenty-one,” Marco said, and both kids looked down, “They’re probably the ones that bought the alcohol.”

“Figures you’d go after them and not the high school idiots.”

Marco shrugged, then tilted his head, “Is that vomit-”

“-I think there’s an attic,” Jean cut Marco off, “And I think there’s more kids hiding up there.”

The two culprits Marco had handcuffed sniggered, confirming Jean’s suspicions. Marco huffed, and then whispered, “You honestly want to search this house for an attic?”

“Not really,” Jean said, “But that’s not the point. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to search for an attic, only because your weird idealism. You only managed to cuff adults.”

“You didn’t manage to cuff anyone,” Marco said, then began to push the two culprits through the house and to the patrol car.

Jean hit Marco in the shoulder, “That’s still not the point, Marco.”

“They’re dumb, college-bound kids who’ll have that taken away from them if they get caught,” Marco sighed, “I don’t think either of us really want to go chasing after them.”

Jean shrugged, not contradicting the fact he didn’t want to go after them, but still added, “They’ll also dumb, college-bound kids who’ll probably stay the rest of the day in a dingy attic, in fear that the police’ll come after them.”

“Are you honestly guilting me for something you don’t want to do either?” Marco asked as he shoved the two handcuffed kids into the patrol car.

Jean smirked, “Yup.”

 

* * *

 

 

September 30th had finally come, and they don’t even end up watching very much House. Marco showed up at nine, meaning Jean should have been awake and well-rested and, thus, not grumpy. Unluckily for Marco, Jean looked like he didn’t get any sleep at all. While they started from the beginning of House, expecting to at least get through the first season, Jean fell asleep across Marco’s lap before the first episode even ended.

Not wanting to wake Jean up, Marco watched the next few episodes of House with Jean on his lap. It was uncomfortable, not because of Jean being on his lap, but because he didn’t really like House and couldn’t reach the remote.

By the fifth episode, Jean finally jolted awake and gracelessly extracted himself from Marco. Pretending to be nonchalant, Jean shuffled over to the other end of the couch and provided unhelpful commentary on why the episode was brilliant. He hadn’t actually seen the episode that many times, so he got the medical twist incorrect, but Marco didn’t call him out on it.

“After five episodes, I still don’t see the appeal,” Marco said as they were in the middle of episode six. Jean looked for something to toss at Marco, found nothing readily available, so took off his own sock and tossed it at him.

It landed on Marco’s head, draping over his eye. “This is worse than babysitting,” Marco said, “At least the kids I babysat had good taste in TV shows.”

“You don’t get it,” Jean groaned, and leaned over Marco to take his sock back. “House is fucking great. It’s a show about a cynical asshole who doesn’t give a shit about people and doesn’t care, and is still a doctor. Someone who’s like, by nature required to give a shit.”

Jean frowned at the end of his rambling, and Marco frowned back. Then, Jean turned to the television again, making more comments about the next episode. Marco didn’t watch, and instead looked at Jean.  

Luckily for Marco, Jean’s appetite prevented them from watching episode seven. Jean’s stomach growled and interrupted the theme song, and Marco took that as a much needed excuse to turn off the show.

“We can watch the show while eating,” Jean said. Marco raised an eyebrow. Jean thought about the contents of House, then quickly reconciled, “We’ll finish the first season after eating.”

Getting to the kitchen took longer than anticipated. Jean refused to get off the couch, saying Marco could cook. After listing excuses as to why he wouldn’t cook ( _It’s your kitchen, not mine; I’m not sure what to make with what you have; You invited me over for me to cook?_ ), Marco eventually admitted that he couldn’t cook, at least without burning anything.

That got Jean off of the couch and onto the floor from the shear force of his laughter.

Eventually, after much dragging, complaining, and stifled giggling, Jean arrived at the kitchen. Marco leaned on the fridge as Jean rummaged through his pantry.

“I was supposed to do groceries this weekend,” Jean said, setting his paltry findings on the kitchen counter, “Didn’t really get to doing much.” Shoeing Marco away from the fridge, he looked through it, and took out some nearly-expired milk and some already-expired eggs.

Marco shuffled to right outside the kitchen, not wanting to accidentally interfere with the process. “I think I have the shit for waffles,” Jean announced, and before Marco confirmed or denied that he liked waffles, cracked an egg into a mixing bowl. Trying and failing to be subtle, Jean sniffed the contents to make sure the eggs weren’t that expired.

Marco tried to take his mind off of the potential disaster of Jean cooking, especially when he needed to smell the ingredients. He scratched his neck, “I can’t believe we took a day off to sit around and eat potentially poisonous waffles.”

Jean glared, then tossed an indiscriminate amount of flour into the mixing bowl. Marco blinked, watched the movement, and tried again to divert his own attention, “I can’t believe Levi let us take a day off to do this.”

Acting like he hadn’t heard, Jean grabbed a whisk and milk and began mixing, pouring the milk as he went. When he’d whisked it to the extent that butter splattered out of the bowl, he turned back to Marco and pointed the whisk at him lazily, “You going to complain about a day off? It’s not like Levi is always a bastard, we can take leave if we want it.”

Jean hunted for the waffle press in the kitchen but continued to hold the whisk, and globs of batter dripped to the floor. Now, Marco had turned his attention from ignoring Jean’s cooking to Jean, “I’ve only been on the force for what? Two months at most? Connie said Levi was a hardass until like, six months in.”

Lugging the waffles press out of a cabinet, whisk still in hand, Jean plugged the contraption in before setting it on the counter. Jean grunted in the affirmative, trying to end the conversation and move onto more important things, like waffles.

Marco understood this, and ignored it. “Why today, in particular? I mean- you already had leave scheduled long in advance. There has to be some reason.”

“-I am going to burn your waffle if you continue,” Jean pointed the whisk again, and this time the batter splattered all the way over to Marco.

Marco opened his mouth, and Jean cut him off before another word could get out, “You’ve condemned your waffles to hell.”

The threat wasn’t very effective, seeing as the waffle iron had just been plugged in, and Marco wasn’t even sure the waffles would be appetizing.

“And you were really oddly specific on the date,” Marco said, his voice trailing off when he got to the end. Jean had been pouring batter into the iron for a while, and the iron had overflowed. He eventually set the batter bowl down and slammed the iron shut.

Letting out a long sigh, Jean grabbed some paper towels and shoved a crumbled bunch of them at Marco. Giving quick glances to the side, Marco began helping Jean clean up the battery mess across the kitchen. Marco still hadn’t commented on Jean’s behavior before, but kept giving him dumb looks of concern.

Both of them were tossing soggy and gross paper towels into the overflowing mess o Jean’s trash can in awkward silence. Surprisingly, Jean broke the silence first, “I quit the NYPD about a year ago.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t because of a shitty roommate,” Marco said as both of them stared into Jean’s trash can at the soggy paper towels.

“No,” Jean responded quietly, and looked like he was about to continue before he had the terrifying realization that the waffle iron was still cooking and now actually burning Marco’s waffle.

Marco realized it first, as both turned around to look at the smoking monstrosity. Before Marco can even comment, Jean was over to the iron and forking the waffle out with such finesse that he’d obviously done this before.

Then, with an equal amount of finesse, Jean shoved the waffle into the trash can, along with the rest of the batter. Marco watched, vaguely impressed with the speed of the action but embarrassed because it was obviously something that happened frequently.

“Fuck it,” Jean said, and grabbed his keys, “We’re going to Dunkin Donuts.”

 

* * *

 

 

They go to Dunkin Donuts, but not to their normal seat. Marco suggested they eat in Jean’s shitty old Dodge Neon, and Jean agreed. Truth to be told, he wasn’t very keen on being in public at all today. And truth to be told, Marco only suggested eating in the Dodge Neon because he knew.

They got a box of only jelly-filled donuts, and set it on the console. Marco ate donuts hesitantly, making sure Jean at least got a couple. He did, sparingly at first but, as he remember that he was hungry, increased rapidly in pace.  

“So now it’s time for me to introduce the terrible conversation topic,” Marco said, and Jean looked away from him and at the window. Marco frowned, but refrained from commenting.

“Long story short, I fucked up,” he said, still facing toward the window. Marco blinked, then picked up the box of donuts and poked Jean in the arm with them. Jean looked at them, then at Marco, and took another handful.

“There was a hostage situation,” Jean said. He had about two donut holes in his mouth, but he didn’t stop talking. “I made the dumb decision- the rash decision- and tried to shoot the guy.” Jean paused, and finally swallowed the donuts, “And it wasn’t a hostage situation anymore because the hostage was dead.”

“Jean,” Marco said quietly, but Jean ignored him. If he was going to be out with it, he was going to be out with all of it.

“And I quit. Two weeks later, put my resignation letters on the table. I figured if I could get away. I wouldn’t have to write the fucking case report or deal with my team or any more high-profile case. I could just stop giving a fucking shit about it.”

Jean gripped the steering wheel of his car, and his knuckles turned white. Slowly, Marco grabbed Jean’s wrist, squeezing it lightly and pulling it away from the wheel.

“It’s not a problem to give a shit,” Marco said, and that entitled a snort from Jean. With more urgency, Marco continued, “I mean it! You can’t just pretend that not caring will help you- it’s not something I think you can do. I mean, you tried to today and you just ended up burning a waffle.”

Jean’s grip on the wheel lessened, but Marco still held Jean’s wrist, “And, well. I don’t think you’ll ever stop feeling guilty about it. But you’ll do other things, you’ll move on.”

Marco paused, waiting for Jean’s response. Jean reached over with his free hand, and grabbed a jelly-filled donut. Shoving it in his mouth, he swallowed before he responded, “I didn’t scoff because I didn’t believe you. I scoffed because you, boy scout extraordinaire, said shit.”

It wasn’t entirely true, but it helped both of them to think it was.

 

* * *

 

 

Their next dispatch to a noise complaint was much more dramatic.

They’d been sitting around the water cooler again, and Jean was complaining about Eren and the Berki case again, this time with Eren around. Marco had tried, multiple times, to divert conversation away from the touchy subject, but none of them had worked.

“Just admit it,” Jean said, crossing his arms and leaning against the water cooler, “Your new suspect is just as good of a bet as the last one. Who, by the way, was actually dead!”

“Fuck you,” Eren spat back, stalking toward the water cooler and taking a paper cup. He filled it, drank the whole thing, and filled it again. It was supposed to be intimidating, but seeing as Jean had seen Connie do the same thing countless times, it didn’t work out.

“Bert and Reiner are positive that this is our kidnapper, we have a mugshot and a car- Ford Explorer, by the way, with plate number SNL-1058,” Eren explained, swishing water out of his cup, “Now we’ve just got to find the guy-”

Jean snorted, and didn’t even bother to pull himself off the water cooler. Easing closer to Jean, Marco watched with growing tension. “Yeah, and waste all this shitty town’s resources finding a kid whose case is probably even abandoned by the feds,” Jean said, “Give it the fuck up. Just deal with the fact that the case is dead and gone, and try to do something else.”

Eren was practically in Jean’s face now, and the water cooler shook, “Thank god Marco has to deal with you on patrol and not me anymore, because you’re a fucking heartless bastard! All you do is quit when the situation gets rough, who the fuck would-”

“Shut the _fuck up_ , Jaeger,” Jean shouted, and he tried to lunge. Marco had, however, jolted forward, grabbing Jean and preventing him from attacking Eren. Despite Marco’s efforts to calm the situation, Jean had managed to knock over the water cooler, and water pooled on the floor.

The people in the room silenced, and the only noise was the bleating radio scanner. Everyone stared as Jean continued glowering at Eren, and Marco pulled him away forcefully.

“We’ll take the noise complaint off of Privet,” Marco said as he dragged Jean away, “And I’ll take care of the water cooler when we get back.”

Jean didn’t make much of a protest as Marco took the driver’s seat, but as soon as they were in the patrol car the complaints came out. Marco, not wanting to throw more fuel on the fire, let Jean continue his ranting until they got to the house.

It was an ordinary house, looking like most other on the block. Country styled, single story, with a nice, white picket fence. Nothing to make it seem out of place, and no evidence of anything warranting a noise complaint.

“Let’s get this over with,” Jean grumbled, stepping out of the car. Marco sighed, then stepped out himself, trying to make it to the door before Jean reached it and made a mess.

It turned out, Marco’s efforts hadn’t really mattered. They knocked on the door a couple of times, but nothing came of it.

“You’re shitting me,” Jean muttered, then knocked again, “It’s not like we can break into a house for a fucking noise complaint, I’m not going to sit here any longer.”

Marco nodded; despite hoping that getting out of the office would improve Jean’s mood, and disappointment that they couldn’t work longer on this, there wasn’t really another option.

Just as they started the patrol car up again, the garage door of the house slinked open, revealing a lumbering SUV. It pulled out of the driveway, and veered into the street with a screech.

“Are you _fucking serious_ ,” Jean groaned, but Marco wasn’t listening. He just slammed on the breaks, not bothering to wait until Jean had his seatbelt on.

Jean careened to the side, and hastily shoved on the belt. “What the fuck are you doing, Marco,” Jean hissed, “It’s a noise complaint, not something to start a car chase over-”

“-It was a Ford Explorer,” Marco said, “Plate number SNL-1058.”

Jean opened his mouth to retort but balked as he realized what, exactly, the details meant. After he’d recovered, and Marco made some more sharp turns in pursuit, Jean grabbed the radio.

“In pursuit of a Ford Explorer, plate number SNL-1058, coming out of Privet and turning north onto Rose,” Jean said, and the radio turned silent. Jean, not knowing what to do, continued, “Suspect turning left onto Trost, to a dead end.”

Marco looked over slightly now, meeting Jean’s eyes for a moment. Jean motioned forward and said, “Guy doesn’t know where he’s going. The only way out of Trost is the old church at the end, and the gate’s been closed for years.”

Nodding, Marco didn’t take his eyes off the road again, only listening to Jean’s hazardous directions.

They reached the dead end, and Marco swiveled the car across the street, effectively blocking the path. The driver of the Ford Explorer had gotten out of his car, trying desperately to open the gate. Slumped over his shoulders was an unconscious looking kid, his profile looking much more narrow and unkempt than the posters in the office.

Piling out of the car, Jean pulled his handgun out for the second time in his career, pointing it at the kidnapper. “Stop and turn around,” Jean shouted, the grip on his gun shaking. Marco stood behind him, his gun at the ready but not pointed.

The kidnapper turned around, keeping one arm on Berik and holding his other arm in the air. “Let me set him down,” he said, starting to kneel down.

Marco nodded automatically and much too quickly, and then looked over to Jean for input on what to do. Jean, however, wasn’t giving any obvious cues on what he thought about the situation. Despite his upwelling dread and instinct to say they shouldn’t let the man make a move, setting Berik down meant a better shot.

After a couple of second, Jean nodded. “Go ahead,” Marco said, dropping his gun. Jean didn’t follow suit.

Setting the unconscious kid on the ground, knelt to the ground longer than necessary, and, before either Marco or Jean could get a proper reading on the situation, pulled out a gun and shot.

Marco tensed suddenly, letting out a sharp scream and clutched his shoulder before hitting the ground. Any hesitation Jean felt before this moment faded in the instant his mind processed what happened.

He panicked, picking up his gun and trying to shoot with a shaky hand and a bad aim. Two shots explode from the gun, the after effects causing Jean to wince. Both shots missed, and the kidnapper had already shoved Berik into the car and drove through the gate, but the adrenaline in his system didn’t allow for him to care.

Shoving his gun back into the holster, his attention now entirely focused on his injured comrade. Marco had hit the ground, hard, enough that he’d been knocked unconscious. Jean couldn’t breath; a pool of blood gathered around Marco, soaking his uniform with red.

“Marco,” Jean managed to breath, kneeling down and looking for the bullet wound. One shot, right through the shoulder, exit wound clearly visible. Ripping off the sleeve of his uniform, he pressed it against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

Then, realizing that no one knew what the hell was going on, fumbled for his receiver. Keeping on hand on Marco’s shoulder and the other on the receiver, he talked frantically, “Officer down, officer down, at the church at the end of Trost, shot-”

“Where the hell’s the suspect,” came the reply from the radio, “Sending an ambulance-”

“Who the fuck gives a shit about the suspect, Jaeger,” Jean hissed back into the radio. The fabric Jean pressed over the injured had soaked through, but Jean kept his hand over the wound.

Jean could hear chatter over the radio, directions and locations and shit he couldn’t care less about for the moment. The next coherent response took longer,  “Kirstein, calm down. We’re sending an ambulance, don’t lose your shit.”

“Fuck you, Levi, fuck being calm-”

“-Kirstein, if you don’t want Bodt to die, calm the _fuck down_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Despite Jean’s panicked response, they had managed to get Marco to a hospital, where Jean spent the next two days, surviving off of coffee, sugar packets, and whatever other members of the force would bring him. Marco spent two days there, too, but Jean didn’t count it- or didn’t want to think about it- because he was drifting between in and out of consciousness the entire time.

Despite having a couple cups of sugar coffee, Jean nearly managed to fall asleep in an uncomfortable hospital chair. The table next to him was stacked with cups, take-out boxes, and empty sugar packets.

And, true to Jean’s luck in life, the only time he’d almost slept in two days was when Marco woke up.

It took Jean a while to realize that Marco was actually awake; his conscious behavior wasn’t much different than his unconscious behavior. He would fidget, roll over, groan; it wasn’t something Jean processed as Marco being awake.

However, talking wasn’t something Marco did while sleeping.

“Jean,” Marco mumbled, and Jean jolted up, knocking over the towering garbage on the table. Marco blinked, and tried to turn over to look at the mess, but a stabbing pain in his shoulder stopped him.

Jean pulled his chair forward, crunching the garbage under it. With some hesitation, he placed a hand on Marco’s good shoulder, pushing him back onto the bed.

“Shoulder was shot,” Jean stated, sitting back in his chair. Marco couldn’t really turn over to look at Jean, but he still tried.

“That would explain a lot of things,” Marco said, looking carefully at Jean. The officer’s hair was sticking up in several places, and his eyes looked red with black bags under them.

Jean grunted, and looked across the room to the door. Marco added on, “It would also explain why you smell terrible.”

This got more of a response, with Jean glancing back at Marco, “Hey, is this the thanks I get for following through with your promise to fix the water tank? I had to bribe Sasha with hospital food to do it. You have no idea how difficult that was.”

Marco smiled, but it faded quickly. He didn't try to turn over to face Jean again, and Jean tapped his fingers on the table, unable to think of a shitty conversation topic that wouldn't drift into unacceptable areas. “Do you know what happened with Berik afterwards? After I got shot.”

Jean paused; might as well get it over with. Eventually, he said, “Long story short, we fucked up.” He sounded as if he was in two places at once.

Marco closed his eyes, and let out a shaky sigh. “Well,” he started, then swallowed thickly, “Fuck.”

Giving a hollow laugh, not finding much amusement in Marco’s curse this time, Jean replied, “Yeah, _fuck_.”


	2. Guilt Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would apologize for the wait, but that seems... pretty thin, considering I've just extended the wait for completion. 
> 
> Anyway. Changed some minor details in the last chapter- Marco's injury went clean through, and the title's changed to 'Trigger Lock.'
> 
> Thanks to my beta, lostlegendaerie, and Katie for putting up with me as I complained about one particular section.

Marco placed a hand over his face, but despite that hadn’t opened his eyes again. Then, still refusing to look at anything but the backs of his eyelids, he said quietly, “He’s dead, then?”

“No,” Jean replied without much confidence, “After you went down, he got away with the kid. We found his car parked on the side of some back road, and tried sending the dogs after them, but they lost the scent because it’s been raining constantly.”

“They can probably still find him, the rest of the force isn’t nearly as incompetent,” Marco said, finally opening his eyes. The incomplete comparison hung between them, answered but unvoiced. He had propped himself awkwardly on his uninjured side, but Jean couldn’t feel any relief in the change of posture.

“The probability of that isn’t very high,” Jean responded, watching Marco carefully.

“I know, and I know it’s naive to cling to the idea that they’ll find him but,” Marco said, and his gaze returned to the ceiling,  “But I don’t really what to think about what happens if they don’t.”

Jean didn’t respond, and instead tapped his fingers along the rim of the hospital chair. The sound echoed without pattern. He couldn’t help but think that, no matter how shit their position was before, it had just gotten worse with that admission. However, his thoughts were interrupted by Marco himself.

“Are you okay?” Marco asked, and Jean gave him an incredulous look, “I mean, I almost died, or at least was out for a long time.”

Jean shifted in his chair, and the trash he’d knocked over from before crinkled under it, “I’m pretty sure that question should be reversed.”

“You’re sitting over the evidence that you’re obviously not okay,” Marco said, motioning to the ground with his chin, given that he couldn’t really motion with his arm. The remains of Jean’s two-day stay remained scattered across the floor.

Jean looked down, shrugged, then made a halfhearted hand motion toward the hospital bed, “Says the one with a sling and hooked up to fuck knows what.”

“You’re deflecting,” Marco said.

Jean rolled his shoulders back, sitting straight in his chair, “So are you.”

Despite the fact that Jean stayed for half an hour longer, they didn’t get much further than back and forth deflections. The awful deflection game only morphed into disingenuous banter, with both of them trying to pretend they were okay while getting the other to admit they weren’t.  

 

* * *

 

At Marco’s own request, Jean finally had to leave the hospital room to, as Marco had put it, stop being a potential health hazard and take a shower. Without much confidence in Marco’s levity, Jean left the room, closing the door slowly even though Marco wasn’t even sleeping.

Jean paused as he finished closing the door, and was about to turn and leave for the shower he needed when he heard an all-too-familiar voice say, “Kirstein.”

Looking over his shoulder, Jean couldn’t respond. In front of him stood Captain Levi, a fair distance away, with a hospital mask on and a slightly unnerved look on his face. Jean figured it was due to being in a hospital, when reality it was because of the close proximity to Jean himself, who hadn’t washed up in days.

Jean looked to the door and back, wondering if that was Levi’s destination. Levi didn’t move, just stared expectantly at Jean.

“He’s awake,” Jean commented, and Levi nodded curtly, but didn’t make a motion to leave.

Jean shifted from one foot to the other. “I’ll get to the report later,” he continued, not sure what Levi wanted. “I’ll be sure to add some ass-kissing for how much I cussed you out over the radio.”

Keeping a masked expression, Levi ignored Jean’s words, evidently not what he was here for, “I’m going to give you two options here, Kirstein. You either get leave for the rest of a week and another annual day off like you did on the thirtieth, or you take permanent leave.”

It took a minute for Jean to realize what his choices were and what permanent leave meant, and when he did he averted his eyes. It was almost insulting for that to be an out-right option, but it wasn’t unprecedented or unpredictable. Levi wasn’t one to beat around the bush, and he knew why Jean had quit the NYPD; it wouldn’t be out of place for him to do the same here.

And, truth to be told, his first instinct was to take the latter option. Instead of letting hopeless situations potentially get worse, Jean would always quit. He hadn’t applied to law school; he had quit the NYPD; he gave up on the Berik case. He quit when the situation got rough, and both Levi and Jean knew that it wasn’t much different now than it was then.

Trusting his instincts and thinking he’d made the right decision, he looked back up at Levi. Levi, however, wasn’t looking at him. Jean followed the shorter man’s gaze to the hospital room next to them. He looked in, and couldn’t even see the edge of Marco’s bed.

Levi turned back, staring at Jean expectantly again, and Jean’s answer died in his throat. Maybe it was a bit different now.

Shaking his head, Levi sighed, “Just put the paperwork on my desk when you’ve made your decision,” Then, he turned and began to walk out.

Jean swallowed thickly and said, “Wait.” Levi stopped but didn’t bother turning around.

And, with an odd mix of hesitence and determination, Jean looked into the hospital room as he continued, “I’ll take temporary leave.”

 

* * *

 

Jean just wanted the next week to be over with.

Marco deluding himself into thinking that Berik had a chance had caused some awkward, unfixable rift between the two. While Jean was dragged into chauffeuring Marco around, the rides were mostly awkward small talk or attempts at light-hearted quips that came out oddly bitter.

It was like Jean had taken enough steps back that their relationship was worse than their first patrol, or worse than when they'd first met.

The other members of the force made it slightly better; they had taken to checking in with Marco themselves, bringing cookies or movies, and, to Jean’s disgruntled disapproval, humor the idea that there was a chance or hope left to the situation, leaving Jean as the defacto messenger for the truth.

Still, he’d been the one to offer to drive Marco to physical therapy since the other man insisted on driving a stick shift, something that wasn’t exactly possible with one arm out of service. And, despite the palpable tension of the situation, there was no way in hell he was going to back down from that.

Parked outside Marco’s apartment, Jean held back the urge to honk the car’s horn, alert Marco of his presence, and anger every neighbor Marco had. After about a good ten minutes and twelve angry swigs of coffee, Jean hadn’t even noticed Marco had been ready until he rapped on the passenger window.

Jean jolted at the noise, then unlocked the door to let Marco in.

This ride, they, at least for a while, avoided bitter conversation by avoiding conversation entirely. They would each take turns taking sips of coffee, or changing the radio station, or any small avoidance tactic. It was a shitty way to go about not hurting feelings, and Jean knew it, but he wasn’t going to call it out.

About five minutes away from their destination, Marco unwittingly broke the silence by accidentally grabbing Jean’s coffee instead of his own. After taking a long drawl of the drink, Marco blinked, slowly took the cup away from his lips, and furrowed his eyebrows.

“Jean,” he started, and Jean swerved to the left in surprise, “Why are you drinking black coffee?”

“I always drink black coffee,” Jean returned, and Marco didn’t even grant him an amused smirk at that, just an unimpressed frown. Apparently, bad moods broke whatever patience Marco had for Jean’s insistence that he drank a nice, strong brew.

Turning from Marco, to the wheel, and then to Marco again, Jean added, “And why the hell are you drinking my coffee, anyway?”

Marco didn’t pay the protest any mind, and instead commented, “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

Perturbed that they’d somehow managed to talk this car trip, and perturbed by the fact he’d been dreading conversation, Jean said, “My looks are still catching up from your unconsciousness-”

“-I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be drinking black coffee if you were just catching up from that,” Marco cut him off. He still hadn’t set Jean’s coffee down, instead holding it hostage in an oddly tight grip.

“Sleep’s for the weak,” Jean said, realizing that Marco wasn’t going to let this go any time soon.

Marco finally set the cup down, satisfied he’d finally gotten something out of Jean, but then turned to Jean with an even more concerned look than before, “Wait- have you slept _at all_?”

Letting out a slow breath, Jean refused to turn away from the wheel again, “I’m _fine_ , quit giving me that look- I slept when you sent me home to shower-”

“-that was two days ago-”

“-and like you’re one to fucking criticize me,” Jean hissed, sparing Marco a glance but nothing more than that.

“I’m not trying to,” Marco said quietly, and finally set the coffee back into the cup holder. “I’m just concerned-”

“-well, that makes two of us then.”

Despite being the one cut off, Marco paused, giving Jean the benefit of the doubt as to what he was referring to.

“I know you think that things’ll work out now that they’re out of our hands, but they won’t, and you’re going to have to-”

And the benefit of the doubt returned to defensiveness, “-I don’t want to talk about this-”

“-well, I don’t want to talk about not sleeping, so we’re sort of stuck at an impasse, aren’t we?”

They’d gotten to their destination at that point. Jean hadn’t turned back to Marco, and Marco had already opened the door partway.

“Yeah,” Marco finally said, shoving the door open with his foot and grabbing his coffee. “I guess we are.”

Stepping out of the car with as much grace as he could manage, Marco tried to shut the door, but the seatbelt prevented the door from closing. Looking from his coffee, to his slinged arm, to the door, Marco glared at the car, then left before he’d even tried to fix the door.

“Yeah,” Jean said belatedly and to no one, finally turning to stare at the empty passenger seat, “Yeah, we are.”

Jean set his head down on the steering wheel, not bothering to take the car out of park. He only left when Marco texted him, saying that he was getting a ride home from one of the other patients.

 

* * *

 

A week after Marco had been discharged from the hospital, the rain had finally let up enough for the K-9 unit to productively search the vicinity. There had been various searches before hand, but they hadn’t come up with any results.

Everyone had been standing around the unfixed water cooler, hushed and listening to the K-9 unit’s radio broadcast. Most of the officers were either pacing, or had given up long into the broadcast and sat dejectedly in the shitty office chairs.

Jean had been one of the first to sit down, choosing a spot next to Armin Arlert, the force’s public affairs officer. He’d been seated the entire time, scribbling notes onto a chicken scratch ridden notepad.

Radio contact lulled intermittently, leaving the room tense and anxious. Finally, after a particularly long silence, they’d announced that they found Berik, dead and beginning to decompose at the bottom of a stream, just south of where the kidnapper’s car had been parked.

The room bustled to life, if it could be called that. Jean watched on with an odd dissociation.  Armin’s hand shook as he concentrated on writing down the details, his already sketchy handwriting looping over itself. Eren had knocked over the water cooler on purpose, and Mikasa made no effort to stop him. Despite his numbness, Jean didn’t even want to look at Braun and Fubar; he could already hear them and that was enough.

He’d had anticipated the outcome, but that didn’t seem to have an impact on how hard the realization that they had really fucked up hit. And when it did, it hit hard. He was lucky he was sitting, because he didn’t think he could handle shaking this much standing up.

This was followed the the subsequent and no less painful realizations that now Jean was accountable for a list of deaths, Marco was accountable for one, too, and Armin was going to be talking to the media soon so the entire state would know what happened.

With the combination of the latter two realizations, Jean mustered whatever strength he had into pulling himself together and leaving the office, no explanation or attention payed to the unfolding chaos around him.

 

* * *

 

Jean hadn’t even gotten to his car before he made the first call. He’d found his phone before he found his keys, and there wasn’t any turning back from that.

Scrolling through his contacts on his shitty old flip phone, his dedication was for naught, as he’d only gotten to voice mail.

“Yo, Marco,” Jean started, despite never being one to say yo, and also never one to start a phone conversation without just diving into whatever the hell he called for, “I, um. You need to call me back when you get the chance.”

He hung up, stared at his phone blankly for a couple of seconds, then dug for his keys.

 

* * *

 

The second call is in the middle of Goodwill, as he stared blankly at a selection of DVDs. He had a plan for this, he swore to himself; he had some manufactured plan for a distraction to what would inevitably be plastered on the news. But part of that plan involved copious amounts of DVDs, and seeing as he didn’t have quite the selection- his selection was House, seasons one through eight- he needed to make a strategic stop at Goodwill.

Without even realizing he was doing it, he pulled out his phone to ask Marco on what he’d actually want to binge watch, got sent to voicemail yet again, then grabbed Goodwill’s entire romcom section in his arms and stomped to the checkout.

 

* * *

 

The next two times he tried to call were in quick succession; first, in the line at the Dunkin Donuts the next district over, leaving a message asking what Marco wanted. Then, he left a second, rambling message after arguing with the manager at the Dunkin Donuts the next district over as to why he couldn’t ask for every jelly-filled donut they had since he’d done that at every other shop.

 

* * *

 

He called three more times, all at stop lights. He had always been the asshole cop to lurk in the shadows of intersections, waiting for nervous teenagers and busy soccer parents to text, call, or do anything warranting a ticket, but now he was calling himself.

The first two went to voicemail, and both got a dramatic hang-up that only an old flip phone could manage. The third call was only a couple of intersections away from Marco’s house, and Jean actually left a message, ablite a short one, just asking Marco to pick up his damn phone.  

 

* * *

 

Jean knocked on Marco’s door an hour and a half after he left the station, toting an overnight bag, two Dunkin Donuts bags, and a shoddily packed plastic shopping bag with dvds toppling out of it. When Marco didn’t answer, Jean knocked another three times and called, “Sir, we have a warrant for your arrest for not answering your phone when I called you _seven times_.”

He could hear slow footsteps moving toward the door, and the door opened to reveal a sweatpants-clad, red-eyed Marco. Or, at the least, part of Marco, as he hadn’t bothered to open the door all the way.

“You look like shit,” Jean said, and Marco’s hand went to shut the door again. He didn’t get it completely closed, as Jean lodged his foot in the doorway. Marco didn’t have the heart to crush it, so both stood at a stand still.

“Jean, I’m fine, I’m sorry to worry you, but I’m really okay,” Marco tried, his voice hoarse and not carrying well.

“No, you’re not fucking fine,” Jean said, unwavered by the the fact that Marco tried to push Jean’s foot out of the doorway, “Neither of us are fine.”

Marco stopped trying to push Jean’s foot away, and Jean slowly rested his head on the door.

“Time to cross that impasse, I guess,” Jean continued, “I know I’m not going to get anywhere with you if I just don’t up to the fact that I’m not okay.”

The door creaked, slightly, and Marco probably moved, but Jean wasn’t going to look at him until he’d said everything.

“You’re right that I haven’t been sleeping. Like, at all.”

There was another creak, but it was ignored, “I have nightmares, alright? I don’t handle this shit well. It’s like some fucking replay reel of the past few days and I don’t handle it well at all.”

And Jean can tell; he can tell that Marco was looking at him through the door, even though he was trying not to. With a shaky inhale, he continued, “And I’ve been trying to ignore it by staying up as long as possible, because last time my solution to fucked up situations was to skip every therapy session, watch House, and then quit my job. Because that’s what I do.”

The door moved slightly, but Jean still kept his forehead pressed to the wood.

“And- and I’m not quitting this time, alright?” Jean said quietly, his hands locked tightly around the cheap plastic bags. He paused, then added, “Just please open the door.”

Marco finally spoke, as quietly as Jean had ended, “You’re sort of leaning on it, I don’t really want you to faceplant into my appartment.”

Jean finally dislodged himself from the door, and Marco finally opened it. Both of them stared at each other, until Marco pulled Jean and his collection of shoddily packed bags into a crushing hug.

To his credit, Jean tried to return the hug, but he could only do so much when he was holding what he should have taken up in two loads. Some of his DVDs had already fallen out of the bag, and the Dunkin Donuts bags were threatening to break.

“I’m going to drop donuts on you,” Jean finally said, despite not making an effort to pull Marco off of him, “I got in an argument with the manager for these, I don’t really want to waste them.”

Marco didn’t move, and Jean could feel the other man’s breath on his neck as he asked, “How many did you buy?”

Jean snorted, unwilling to provide an actual answer. At the least, the lack of remark was enough to force Marco to pull away and grab one of the bags, stepping back into his apartment

Relieved for at least some of the bags taken care of, Jean surveyed the space. First the entry way with letters falling off of a secretary desk, then a small kitchenette that looked unused. Finally, his eyes landed on the living room, with the TV turned onto the news and the couch piled with blankets and hand-me-down quilts.

Marco had set the bags he’d taken on the ground in front of the couch, and Jean had ungracefully spilled the bag of movies, a bunch of recently-purchased romcoms, stickers still on the cases, on the floor in front of the tv. His overnight bag and the rest of the Dunkin Donuts bags sat to the side.

Sighing, Jean just shuffled through the DVDS, placing them all face-up on the ground. He’d accidentally bought extras because he’d just shoved the whole row of movies from Goodwill into his arms without any discretion in picking them. Behind him, Marco still hadn’t moved, only stared at Jean with a conflicted expression on his face.

“I’m not choosing, or letting you chose a movie, until you talk about what I am one hundred percent sure you heard on the news,” Jean said, watching Marco carefully. Despite their hug earlier, he still looked uneasy and shaken.

Crouching down next to Jean, Marco looked at the movie selection with feigned interest. Jean had bought a couple of illy concealed pornos on accident, a selection of Disney knock-off movies, two copies of the Titanic, and only four actually decent movies.

Jean reached over to a forlorn bag of Dunkin Donuts. Grabbing the closest box, Jean careless ripped the top off and selected some donuts for himself. Then, like Marco had before, he poked Marco in the arm with the opened box.

Marco shifted his gaze from the selection of movies to the selection of donuts. Giving Jean a stricken look, he shook his head and grabbed his own donut hole.They sat silently for a while, passing the box between themselves. No movie selection had been made. Marco went to grab another donut hole, sighed, then receded his hand back.

Jean tilted his head expectedly, and Marco sighed, “Before I even joined the force, I researched a lot about work related trauma before going into this. I thought- I thought if the worst were to happen to me, or to someone else, I should know how to deal with it. Injuries, trauma, survivor’s guilt.”

Jean raised an eyebrow, and and opened his mouth in an attempt to cut Marco off to tell him this wasn’t really relevant, but Marco held up a finger.

“For survivor's guilt, a lot of forces make you write out what happened, to show you that you couldn’t have done anything differently to stop it,” Marco continued, “But that’s not true, it just. We could have done something differently.”

Then he took a sharp breath and shook his head, “I keep replaying it in my head, and Jean, I trusted the guy to not be lying. I put down my gun, and got shot and now Berik’s _dead_.”

There was a pause, and Marco didn’t continue. Jean thought Marco had finished on that note, before he realized that Marco was shaking, with his head on top of his knees. His curled position did little to hide the sound of him crying. Jean put a hesitant hand on the Marco’s shoulder, but that only made the shaking worse.

It took a couple of minutes for him to recover and continue. “And you know, cops are supposed to protect people, I joined the force to protect people, and,” Marco swallowed and his voice broke, “And I’m a _shit cop_ , and look- look where it got me. Where it got _him_.”

“We’re both shit cops,” Jean blurted, knowing fully well that this probably wasn’t what he should be saying at the moment, but saying it anyway.

Marco lifted himself up slightly, tilting his head at Jean, “You at least raised your gun.”

Jean snorted, and shoved a donut in his mouth, “Yeah, and you know what happened? I couldn’t fucking shoot because I was worried about my aim since hey, don’t want a repeat event, and instead you got shot.”

Swallowing thickly, Jean took a moment before continuing, “Hell, I couldn’t even aim after you went down.” Grabbing a jelly donut, Jean tried to casually eat it but the jelly oozed out due to his shaky and tight grip.

After a moment’s pause, Jean shifted his position, sitting cross-legged and inched closer to Marco, intentionally or not. “So we’re both shit cops,” he concluded lamely, with unconfident finality.

Marco didn’t return to his fully curled position, just set his chin on his knees. Jean poked him in the arm with the donut box again, but Marco didn’t respond.

“But we don’t need to quit,” Jean said, setting down the donut box as close to Marco as possible, “Individually, well, we’re shit cops. But we’re sort of shitty in complementary ways. You get people but don’t expect them to do bad things and I just don’t expect people to do good things, I have a terrible shot and you don’t know when to shoot.”

Jean looked over at Marco, then picked up the donut box and jabbed him in the side with it again. “I’m not trying to say that it’s fine that we’re partially responsible for a kid’s death. But trust me on the fact that we can coordinate our shittiness a bit better and make sure we won’t fuck up again.”

Marco reluctantly chose a donut hole and rolled it in his palm. He seemed to be in deep concentration, presumably about balancing this donut hole, but then the donut rolled off his hand to the floor.

“I sure as hell wouldn’t be telling you to stay on the force if it was hopeless for either of us,” Jean said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I’m not running away from this one, so just, stick with me, alright?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Marco stated as he stared at the lone donut. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself at this time, but the phrase still rang a little hollow.

As Jean looked somewhat accomplished but not exactly fulfilled, Marco turned, shrugged lopsidedly, and gave Jean a hesitant smile, “But you’re not really good at pep talks, are you?”

Jean blinked, somewhat stunned at the response, but then he returned a weary smirk, “Naw, but you are.” He grabbed the nearest DVD and shoved it into the dvd player. Taking what he guessed was the DVD remote, Jean pointed it to the couch, “Grab the other boxes and get your ass on the couch, I’m not going to sit through this movie alone.”

Marco had, without hesitation or protest, grabbed the other two boxes of donut holes and sat on the couch. The boxes lay stacked between their feet, the tower was tall enough to reach easily from there. Not bothering to look at the screen, Jean clicked play, and felt strangely proud of the fact that he’d chosen the right remote.

He had not, however, chosen the right DVD.

Instead of paying attention to what was on the TV, Jean stared blankly ahead, trying to think of something else vaguely positive to add. It wasn’t working out very well, and he didn’t have very much of a chance to think of anything more. They’d gotten five minutes into the show when Marco nudged him in the side.

“I’m sure you have the best intentions,” Marco said, trying to keep the corners of his mouth from upturning, “But I don’t think watching a terrible porno is the best plan.”

Jean blinked in confusion, looked at the TV, which was playing terribly corny music and in the middle of a terribly shot sex scene, then turned back to Marco with a look of absolute mortification. Marco tilted his head to the side, and while he had obviously understood that Jean had unintentionally played the DVD, he feigned ignorance.

“That was an accident,” Jean spluttered, flushing red, grabbing for the remote, and subsequently dropping it to the floor, “There was- there were a lot of DVDs, I don’t know what shitty romcoms look like, I bought so many DVDs, this wasn’t what I had planned.”

Marco blinked owlishly, hiding a poorly concealed grin. Jean, in his panic, couldn’t see through Marco’s paper-thin veil of confusion and continued stumbling over his own words, “Hey, I tried to call you! To ask about movies! This is all your fault, if you’d picked up I would have found something better and we wouldn’t be watching this and why is it still on.”

Not able to hide his grin anymore, Marco picked up the remote, turned off the TV, and watched Jean continue to fluster himself more.

“This is all your fault, this is completely your fault you should have answered the phone this wasn’t my intention and,” Jean finally took a breath, but his face remained red, “I’m sorry for almost trying to comfort you with a porno.”

At that point, Marco had curled over again, nearly falling off the couch as he buried his head in his knees. Jean, still deeply embarrassed, nudged him on the shoulder, but got no response.

“Marco,” Jean said as he nudged Marco’s good shoulder again, hoping that he hadn’t accidentally sent Marco off the deep end, “Out of all the things to- wait, are you fucking _laughing_ at me.”

Marco leaned back, accidentally knocking over the stack of donut boxes as he tried to cover his mouth so he wouldn’t laugh so loudly. With an over dramatic groan, Jean placed a hand over his face, “I don’t want to touch any of the other ones. I spent a fucking fortune on DVDs and I’m terrified of even touching them.”

Jean wasn’t sure if Marco had even heard the comment, since Marco had just continued laughing at him. Not taking away the hand from his face, Jean smiled despite his mortification.

It took a while for Marco to finally stop laughing. He had stopped temporarily, admitted that it wasn’t even that funny, then restarted his sniggering. When he finally stopped for good, Jean still hadn’t moved his hand away from his face.

“Are you done,” Jean drawled, giving Marco a pitiful attempt at an annoyed grimace.

Marco hummed a response, not trusting himself to talk. Instead, he restacked the donut boxes and grabbed a donut hole, shoving it in his mouth.

Jean shook his head and looked at the donut boxes again. He’d bought them four boxes of donut holes, all jelly-filled, and they hadn’t even finished one.

“Since I already wasted like, eighty bucks on DVDs I never want to touch again, we’re going to finish all of those,” Jean said, and despite Marco initially thinking it was more dramatics, Jean looked completely serious about the matter.

“Jean, we haven’t even finished a box of them.” Marco protested, looking aghast at the newly stacked boxes.

“ _All of them_ ,” Jean reiterated.

By the time they’ve finished the second box, they should have stopped. But there were two more, and Jean was very persistent in finishing the entire thing. With each donut they ate, there was a growing sense of pain, disgust, and self-loathing at the jelly-filled monstrosities, but tenacity overpowered their suffering.

They’d decided, after eating two boxes of donuts without the TV turned onto anything, to skim through Marco’s DVDs for something acceptable. There had been the predicted police procedurals, with every permutation of CSI available, and Jean commented on Marco’s poor taste the entire time. (“NCIS, really, Marco?” “I don’t really have an explanation for that one.” “You own every season.” “No explanation!”) They’d drifted again into banter, but the comfort seemed genuine instead of forced.

After they’d started the third box, they decided on Friends (“You’re a lot like Chandler.“ “Are you fucking with me, he’s so dull, he has a boring office job. I’m a cop;’”‘ “Don’t worry, I wasn’t trying to insinuate that you aren’t cool, Jean.”), and their consumption slowed noticeably.

When there was only part of one box left, and both men were sprawled on separate ends of the couch, legs tangled in the middle. The lone box sat precariously between them, noticeably out of reach from actual consumption.  

“Marco,” Jean said, his head lolled over the armrest and his hand clutching his stomach, “We’re never eating jelly filled munchkins again.”

Marco responded by dislodging a leg from the couch, kicking over the remaining box to the ground, and watching as the jelly-filled monstrosities rolled across his own floor. He set his leg back down, and let out a suffering groan, “I’m never going to even look at another one again.”

They both quieted in their donut-induced misery. Neither have bothered to get up from the couch to turn off Friends, the TV, or the lights. They fell asleep, with Friends looping in the background and a minefield of donuts waiting in front of them for the morning.

 

* * *

 

At nine, Marco woke up with a foot in his face and an upset stomach. With a gurgling protest at the foot, he shoved the offending appendage out of his face and tried to dislodge himself from the couch. It worked, somewhat, being that he hadn’t managed to dodge the donuts on the floor, and had to trek across the room with jelly stuck between his toes and dripping off his cheek.

With an upset stomach and a feeling of what he could only describe as a donut hang-over, Marco reluctantly started cleaning up the carnage. He wasn’t sure how donut holes could make such a mess, but they had. And, since he didn’t really want to wake up Jean- who knew how much he’d actually slept over the past week- Marco had to clean up the mess alone.

Grabbing a plastic bag from the kitchen, Marco had only managed to collect about two dozen donut holes before he heard Jean stirring. Thinking that he’d accidentally woken Jean up, Marco turned to apologize, only to be faced with Jean, still sleeping, gripping the couch cushions with white knuckles and shaking.

Marco froze, watching Jean carefully; he knew that waking people up from nightmares wasn’t the best idea, seeing as there wasn’t much of a chance that Jean was going to get back to sleep after this.

And yet, when Jean started muttering curses under his breath, there was no way Marco could just continue to clean and ignore it.

Dropping the plastic bag to the floor, Marco kneeled next to the couch, lightly shaking Jean’s shoulder. The attempt just made Jean grimace more and pull away from the touch as much as he could, curling into the back of the couch.  

“Jean,” Marco implored, jostling Jean’s shoulder again. His efforts, this time, weren’t futile. Jean flipped the complete opposite direction as he had before, jolting awake and nearly off the couch.

Then, wide-awake and staring at Marco with wild eyes, Jean scrambled into a vaguely upright position, halfway off the armrest. Marco, in too much shock of the awakening to say anything, pulled his hand away.

Breathing heavily, Jean clung to the armrest of the couch, staring at Marco with an unnerving and worrying intensity. Then, finally stabilizing his breathing, he asked, “Why is it pink?”

Marco blinked. He blinked again. The third time he blinked, he finally managed to produce a response, but it was only “What?”

Jean moved forward, reaching out slowly to Marco’s face. Then, in about the most anticlimactic moment, he wiped the smidgen of jelly that remained on Marco’s face from when he fell on the donut minefield that was his floor. Jean sniffed the substance, then wiped it on Marco’s couch.

“It’s jelly,” Jean muttered, oddly relieved, “It’s jelly.”

With a glancing forlorn and perplexed look at the now stained couch, Marco asked, “What did you think it was?”

Jean shrugged, then slowly shifted himself to a more reasonable position off half the armrest and onto the couch cushion. Ignoring Marco’s concern, or what Jean figured would be concern, he hadn’t actually looked at Marco, he said, “Well, I don’t know if the nightmares got better because of your couch or the donuts, but I sure as hell am not trying donuts again.”

Looking back at Marco and anticipating some relief on the other man’s face, Jean only got a look of horror. Jean opened his mouth to back track, but Marco cut him off, “They’re normally worse?”

Jean considered avoiding the question again, but knew that would only get him a couple more steps back yet again. “Yeah,” he finally said, scratching the back of his neck, “And I know this’ll seem shitty, given yesterday, but I don’t exactly want to talk about it.”

Not getting another response, Jean added quietly, “Not right now, at the least.”

Marco glanced at the stained couch with some facet of understanding, then shrugged, “That’s fair enough.”

He paused, then added, “If it helps at all, you’re welcome to sleep on my couch.”

To Marco’s surprise, Jean protested, “Your couch is the most uncomfortable thing in the universe.”

After raising an eyebrow that didn’t entice a response, Marco said, “But you actually slept on it. And I’m pretty sure you own a futon, which can’t be-”

“-Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it was the apartment. Not the couch, or the donuts, it has to be your apartment,”Jean interjected, crossing his arms and sitting up straight. He narrowed his eyes at Marco, who couldn’t humor this nonsense.

“Jean, the only other option for you to sleep at my apartment would be my bed, and I’m injured. I am not moving to the couch,” Marco said with finality, rubbing his temples.

Jean uncrossed his arms, putting up one finger to signal that he had some retort, then crossed his arms again. With downcast eyes and a forced and oddly vulnerable half-smirk, he asked, “It’s big enough for two people?”

Gauging Jean’s expression carefully, Marco opened his mouth to question Jean’s stubbornness on the issue, but didn’t say anything. He had an idea about where Jean’s insistence stemmed from, but, for whatever reason, he didn’t press it.

Finally, Marco shook his head and gave in, “If you snore, you’re getting kicked out.”

 

* * *

 

Despite the fact that driving to pick up Dunkin Donuts and then dropping Marco off at physical therapy was out of the way, Jean did it anyway. It was one step closer to some level of unforced normalcy, at the least.

And, even though it was early enough the sun hadn’t risen and rainy enough to nearly ruin the Jean’s shitty Dodge’s engine, Jean had to admit that he’d missed going to Dunkin Donuts at early hours to toss donut holes at each other and kick people out of their seats. It shouldn’t have been normal to feel such an aching lose at not getting donuts, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it, since he had them now.

However, his sense of continuity and his naive enjoyment of going to Dunkin Donuts at god-knows-when shattered as Jean quickly realized that the person who normally worked the register had been replaced.

Marco had already ordered and had been undeterred by the new face, ordering the same coffee and a donut hole box minus the jelly filled ones, but Jean wasn’t going to give in to the change so easily.

Jean was about to order, when he realized that not only had the cashier been replaced, they’d been replaced by someone he swore knew.

“Ymir?” Jean spoke, slack-jawed and oblivious to the fact that the girl’s name tag said Ilse, not Ymir, “What the hell, Erwin finally decided to give you the boot? Serves you-”

“-I’m not Ymir,” Isle replied with a sigh, obviously having been through this before, and continued with saccharine pleasantness, “And welcome to Dunkin Donuts, what can I get for you?”

Jean looked over his shoulder, saw that there was more than only him in the donut shop, then whispered his ordered with an unneeded amount of secrecy.

“Alright-y then, one Dunkaccino for,” Ilse trailed off, holding an uncapped sharpie over Jean’s cup; it had been largely and obviously notated with evidence of his non-black-coffee order. Not getting a response, she implored, “Can I get a name?”

“Why are you asking for my name,” Jean said, drumming his fingers on the counter, “This isn’t Starbucks, and there are literally only three other people here, not including you, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Ilse hadn’t moved, and held Jean’s unfilled cup of sugar coffee hostage.

Jean pursed his lips, then crossed his arms defensively. “Put Marco on it,” he finally said, thinking he’d won.

Ilse tapped the top of the pen on Jean’s cup, “I’m sorry sir, but one of the other three people in the store is, by startling coincidence, also named Marco. It might get confusing. Can I have another name?”

Jean slowly raised an eyebrow, but Ilse would not budge. Her hand still hovered over the coffee cup, with the only notation being one telling the world it was a Dunkacinno.

Then, he smirked and said, “Put Bodt on it.”

Ilse didn’t move her hand for a second, then shrugged and scrawled on the cup. Jean payed and, with a self-satisfied shit-eating grin, turned dramatically on his heel to wait two feet away for his order.

When his coffee was finished, he had picked it up with enough speed that Ilse hadn’t had the chance to call the fake name. She didn’t seem too perturbed by the fact, which slightly disappointed Jean, but at the least he’d avoided the embarrassment of having his coffee secret revealed to the world- or, to the one other person in the store who didn’t know.

Nevertheless, he didn’t waste too much time mulling over it, instead sitting down at their normal seat.

There was still a level of not normal in the situation. Despite both sitting in their normal spots, Marco seemed entirely uncomfortable with the idea of sitting with his back to the door now. He’d glance over his shoulder every minute or so, and Jean would offer to switch seats if he wasn’t so painfully attached to watching the door himself.

In an attempt to distract Marco from his door watching, Jean started, “When you were on leave last week, some shoplifting twerp tried to get away from mall police and, somehow, got stuck on the roof of the mall.”

Still looking at the door and not anticipating any conversation, Marco nearly dropped his donut hole in surprise. However, he recovered rather gracefully and commented, “Couldn’t you call the fire department to get him down?”

“ _That is never an option,_ ” Jean stated adamantly, sipping at his drink before continuing, “Anyway, Hannes called us in, so we had to figure out a way to arrest the kid and also get them off the roof.”

Marco snorted, then asked, “What were they even trying to steal?”

“That’s the punchline,” Jean refused to answer, and Marco actually pouted at him for the answer. Or attempted to; he started sniggering during the middle of his pouting endevours, which was ironically what won Jean over.

“They were trying to steal a dildo,” Jean said, looking to the side in an attempt not to laugh. He couldn’t help but glance back at Marco a couple of times for his reaction, which had been to stare slack-jawed with a lopsided smile.

“Oh my god,” Marco said, then put a hand over his forehead, “This is why you need me around, because _oh my god_.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Jean interjected, “Mikasa and I climbed a tree and caught the kid red handed. Probably suffered enough just by embarrassment.”

“Why did you chose a tree over the fire department-”

“-you don’t understand. You can never call the fire department, they’re a bunch of glorified assholes-”

“-so after all that, you made the kid climb a tree to get back down?”

Jean shoved a donut hole into his mouth, chewing it with unwarranted aggression. He went to grab another one, but Marco dragged the box away. With a defeated sigh, Jean said, “No, we didn’t. We called the fire department.”

Marco outright grinned, and Jean couldn’t even muster up irritation at his defeated pride. Instead, he plowed into what he had meant for the story to lead into, “ _The point is_ , I’m not going to work with Mikasa or Eren anymore after that, so I’ve managed to convince Erwin that we can do public affairs shit until you’re out of physical therapy.”

Jean had anticipated at least a hum of agreement, but he only received a skeptical furrowing of the eyebrows.

“We sort of need to improve our public image, you know,” Jean continued, sounding less sure in his conviction as he went on. Marco’s skeptical look remained, maybe even intensified.

“I mean, after the whole Berik thing, and everyone is always irritated at wasted taxes, and I’m making sense why do you look like I’m trying to convince you to bite off your own thumb,” Jean said, having lost the train of thought of his reasoning.

Marco scratched the back of his neck, “Jean, don’t take this the wrong way-”

“-a very comforting introduction-”

“-but you’d be terrible at public affairs. Or being a lawyer, for that matter. You’re pretty blunt, and not exactly good at lying. I mean, you’ve been hiding the fact that you drink sugary coffee since we came here the first time, and, well, I’ve known since the first time.”

Jean gawked, and curled his hand around his cup of coffee defensively, “How can I take that the right way? That is literally an insult. There is no right way to take that. I’m not sure how you could even spin that to a right way.”

Marco hadn’t moved his hand from the back of his neck, “I was going for that you’re honest?”

“That’s a jump,” Jean huffed, grabbing a donut hole. He’d anticipated that he’d need a quip by the time he finished it, but to his surprise, Marco didn’t respond. He just bit his lip, then returned to eating.

It was the first time really that Jean had really managed to defend himself and win in any of their bantering exchanges, and he wasn’t even proud of it. Conversation lulled, and they only really communicated to pass the donut box back and forth.

“I’m not saying no,” Marco said quietly, after they’d almost finished the box, “Actually, I’m pretty much saying the opposite. I’m not going to let you go off and accidentally make everything worse.”

Jean looked up, seeming very confused at the conversational path, the said, “I’m not that bad.”

“Jean, you’ve already made Ilse into an enemy and you’ve known her for about five minutes,” Marco said, looking pointedly at Jean’s cup.

It took Jean a moment to realize who Marco was referring to, then quickly turned his drink away from Marco. He tried to start on some explanation as to why he used Marco’s last name, but balked as he realized that his cup didn’t say ‘Bodt,’ and, instead, Ilse had tactically misheard the name and wrote ‘Butt.’

Jean stood up, grabbed a coffee cup sleeve, and shoved it on his drink to eradicate the evidence. Marco hid his grin behind his own cup, and Jean muttered “I’ve known her for longer than five minutes because there is no way in hell she isn’t Ymir.”

 

* * *

 

The first public affairs event that Jean dragged Marco to was talking to kindergartners about what the police force did. Marco had been oddly hesitant about the particular task, arguing that Sasha and Connie were probably better choices since the K-9 force had cute dogs at their disposal.

Jean argued back that the last time they’d brought the dogs to a kindergarten classroom, the teacher had a secret marijuana storage in her classroom. The patrol dogs had barked their heads of, scaring the children and forcing Connie and Sasha to arrest the innocent looking kindergartner in front of thirty-odd frightened six year olds.

After that particular recollection, Marco agreed to talk to the kindergarten class, but the pair didn’t even get through introductions before the presentation started falling apart.

They’d only managed their names, when one of the tiny kindergartners, clad all in red, shouted from the back of the class, “You’re Jean Kirstein?”

Marco gave Jean a questioning look, but Jean looked just as baffled, “It’s pronounced Jean, but-”

“-my nana complains about you,” the kid said, managing the rather simple task of cutting Jean off. Jean blinked, rapidly, trying to process the information, but Marco put together what was going to happen rather quickly, and placed a hand over his face.

“Well, that’s nice,” Jean said, and Marco splayed his fingers to glance over in hope that, maybe, this wouldn’t go terribly. His hopes were in vain, as Jean added, “Wait. _Wait._ Is she one of those Sunday speedsters?”

The kid didn’t quite understand what a Sunday speedster was, but then again, the only one in the room who did was probably Marco. Still persistent on finding out, Jean asked, “What car does she drive?”

“She has a lot of stickers on it,” the girl started, but she couldn’t finish as Jean had a moment of realization that he more than likely did know this kid’s grandmother..

To Marco’s mortification, Jean stated sternly and with the most intimidating glare Marco had seen him muster, “- _your nana is a criminal._ ”

The children hushed, Jean opened his mouth to continue, and Marco seized the opportunity to tactically step on Jean’s foot.

From then on, it was mostly a recovery effort to compensate for Jean accusing a kindergartner’s grandmother of being a criminal. There was a lot of tactical elbow-jabbing, coughing, and interruption.

And, despite the rough start, Marco managed to do well. Well enough that the shutting Jean up moments happened less and less frequently, with Jean relying on Marco’s tact and general amicableness to recover from his lack thereof.

They’d gotten to the question and answer section without anymore incidents, and they were almost home-free until the same girl as before raised her hand, asking the seemingly innocent question of “Why’s Officer Bodt’s arm hurt?”

Marco froze; Jean froze; the teacher froze. Slowly, Jean turned his head to look at Marco, who was rapidly blinking and clenching and unclenching his hand. Not taking his eyes off Marco, Jean said hastily, “He got shot.”

The class hushed yet again, and Marco hadn’t said anything, and Jean tried to get them out of the situation as quickly as possible, “And that concludes our question and answer session for the day. Thank you for having us, we,” he looked at Marco, who still hadn’t moved, “Have to go.”

And with that conclusion, Jean gave an apologetic look to the teacher, put a hand on Marco’s back, and guided him out of the room.

Marco didn’t say anything until they’d gotten all the way back to the squad car. Jean hadn’t left the parking lot, only tapping his fingers on the dash and glancing over at Marco.

“I just couldn’t think of anything to say without outright lying,” Marco finally admitted, putting a hand over his eyes, “I mean- I mean, what would I say? Tell them I tried to protect someone- which I failed, that I tried to catch a bad guy and I failed.”

“It was a shitty question to ask,” Jean offered, and Marco shook his head, “It was a shitty question to answer, then.”

“Thanks for answering it, then,” Marco said quietly.

Jean tapped on the wheel of the patrol car again, “You covered my ass, I covered yours. That’s what partners are for, right?”

Marco pulled his hand away from his face, giving Jean a hesitant smile, “Yeah, I guess so.”

 

* * *

 

They honestly shouldn’t have even had a reason to go to Dunkin Donuts anymore. At first it had been an exercise in small talk and introductions, then mutual interest in conversation, and then a comfort. But with Jean practically living at Marco’s apartment and literally sleeping in the same bed, there wasn’t really a justifiable reason for getting up at an ungodly hour to purchase overpriced coffees and a box of the donut holes, minus the jelly ones.

And yet, it continued anyway.

This time, Jean hadn’t actually gotten a decent night of sleep. It was the first time since he’d stayed in Marco’s bed that he woke up in a cold sweat, and he had the distinct intuition that Marco knew what, exactly, he had nightmares about.

Not from a great sense of intuition, but from the fact that Marco was completely transparent with the fact that he knew but couldn’t bring himself to initiate the conversation.

At first, Jean thought it was a fluke; Marco had accidentally ordered the wrong coffee, and spent a good five minutes trying to cover it up. He could put that down to lack of wakefulness, but it just continued. Constant fidgeting and looking at Jean then looking away, tapping on the table in some indiscernible pattern.

Eventually, Jean had enough, and said, “If you want to say something, say it. Quit second guessing yourself.”

Marco nearly jumped, “I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“-You’ve been doing this since Berik died,” Jean said, making sure Marco was looking at him, “You’ve been holding things back, really, really obviously. You didn’t give your full-on speech on why I’d make a shit public affairs person- you were sort of right, I got a fight with a kindergartner.”

Jean paused, and Marco looked off to the side. With a sigh and no attempt to make Marco look up again, Jean continued, “You didn’t even want to talk to said kindergartners, even though you were, for the most part, good at it. And I am one hundred percent sure you know what my nightmares are about, and you haven’t even brought that up once.”

Marco had still not turned back to Jean, and let out a thin, drawn-out breath before asking quietly, “They’re about me, aren’t they? Dying.” Jean took a sharp intake of breathe, and made a conscious effort not to turn away.

“There’s no other reason to freak out about jelly unless you, in your sleep-addled state, thought it was blood, or be so insistent to be in the same room unless it was me you were worried about,” Marco continued, and Jean, despite the continuing urge to look away, kept his gaze.

There was a chance for Jean to go defensive again, but that would be a level of ingenuity and hypocrisy he wasn’t willing to approach, “Yeah.”

The admission hung in the air, and Jean added, “And you knew it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Marco said, not breaking Jean’s gaze. Apparently, he'd been withholding more inutitions than Jean thought, “And you’re so paranoid about me not wanting to second guess myself because that’s what you did, isn’t it? You couldn’t shoot because you didn’t know it was the right decision.”

Despite the remark stinging, it was a reluctant step in the right direction. Jean chewed on a donut hole, then nodded his head.

“We’ll just have to work on it together then,” Marco stated quietly, and grabbed a donut hole for himself.

 

* * *

 

Over the course of Jean’s stay at Marco’s apartment, he’d drifted from sleeping near the edge of the bed with his back to Marco, to the middle of the bed with his back to Marco, then finally to the middle of the bed wrapped around Marco like a clingy octopus.

Luckily, despite not being a morning person, he always managed to wake up before Marco did and untangle himself before Marco woke up. He liked to lie to himself and say that there was no other way Marco could find out about Jean clinging to him other than waking up in the morning before him, and any other possibility was locked away along with his pride.

This time, Jean woke up with his nose buried in the crook of Marco’s neck, his own drool evidence of the fact, and his limbs locked enough around the other man dislodging them would be like a game of Jenga.

Still, he somehow managed to purge the evidence of his snuggling just before Marco woke up. Jean hadn’t even fully climbed out of bed when Marco stirred awake, blinked blearily, and announced that he was going to take a shower.

Jean shrugged in response, and flopped back onto the bed in relief that he hadn’t been found out. The relief didn’t last for long, since about a minute after he’d stretched back on the bed, the doorbell rang.

Grumbling and shuffling off the bed, Jean didn’t bother to look through the eye-hole as he opened the door of Marco’s apartment to reveal an overly excited Connie and a barely-awakened Sasha.

“Hey, Marco, we brought-” Connie started, saw, Jean, then continued, “-Mario Kart?”

Sasha slowly raised an eyebrow and elbowed Connie, who caught on rather quickly, “I didn’t think you two had moved in together.”

Jean frowned, opened his mouth to retort, but closed it when he realized his reason for staying could be summarized as he couldn’t sleep unless he was in the same place as Marco, which wasn’t exactly something he’d wanted to admit, especially not to Thing One and Thing Two.

“I mean, it’s not really a surprise,” Sasha said, and Jean cocked his head to the side trying to figure out where the hell this was going, “You’ve been dating for a while, haven’t you?”

“No,” Jean said, trying to process what had been said. He’d gotten far enough to think he’d denied dating, but when Sasha and Connie both slowly grinned, he realized he’d made a grievous error.

“No, I mean- _no_. We’re not even dating at all, how the hell did you come to that conclusion?” Jean held onto the door, tacitly threatening to close it.

“That’s the only reason you got to stay in his hospital room forever, we told the nurse you were engaged,” Sasha said, and Jean fell for it despite the fact that both Sasha and Connie were grinning maniacally. 

Jean’s grip on the door strengthened, “ _No._ You didn’t actually tell them that.”

“Well, no. But we did seriously think you were dating,” Connie admitted, and Sasha nodded.

“No, we’re _not_ -”

“-I mean, we could barely get you to consume anything but coffee when he was in the hospital-”

“-no, that was a perfectly reasonable response, he almost _died_ -”

“-and you go on like, coffee dates in the morning and everything.”

“-no, those aren’t-” Jean started, but then something clicked. He never understood why he’d missed Dunkin Donuts so much,and why he’d actually been attached to the place despite not really needing to go there every morning.

And it wasn’t the place at all; it was the fact that going there was a practically _date_. There wasn’t any attachment to Dunkin Donuts and its coffee and donut holes, it was the fact that Marco and him had established the dumb tradition and he wasn’t willing to let it go. Jean wasn’t willing to let him go- off the deep end of guilt or losing his companionship. Hell, he had recurring nightmares, and it wasn’t about how he’d messed up, or how he’d killed a kid, it was just about Marco dying. And the back of his mind told him it was even worse than that but he ignored it in face of trying to keep some composure.

He didn’t keep it very well, as Connie and Sasha both watched as Jean paled, his mouth still opened and attempting unsuccessfully to form the end of his sentence.

With wide eyes and a worrying still-open mouth, Jean looked past Connie and Sasha and whispered a very quiet, almost indiscernible, “ _No_.”

Connie poked Jean in the shoulder, but Jean continued looking forward. “I think we broke him,” Sasha said, and Connie just poked Jean again.

“ _No_ ,” Jean repeated, and, with terrible timing, Marco had finished his shower, and tried to maneuver back to the bedroom clad only in a towel.

Jean, regrettably, turned over to look and froze, while Connie took the opportunity to try and divert attention away from Jean’s internal struggle, and called over to him, “Hurry up and get some clothes on, I need to kick your ass at Mario Kart.”

Marco took the whole being found with minimal clothing thing very well and only with slight embarrassment, while Jean took it very, very poorly.

When Marco had finally reached his room, Jean looked over to Connie and Sasha again, and the color had returned to his face to a startling amount.

“ _No_ ,” he repeated, “ _This is not happening_.”

“It’s been happening for a while,” Sasha said, “You’re sort of slow.”

Jean just shook his head, and Connie poked him again, “Look, I’m sorry for accidentally igniting a sexual epiphany, but dude are you okay? Are you going to like, drop everything and flee the country because you look like you’re about to hightail it to Canada.”

“I can’t be in love with him,” Jean finally managed to form a complete sentence, but it wasn’t very appeasing given the content. There was too much to lose, and it’s not something he wanted to explain but also not something he could explain without.

“Those sort of things never work out for me, and I can’t,” he took a sharp intake of breath; and couldn’t find the words to explain the inexplicable, welling panic. He finally settled on, “I can’t lose him.”

Connie gave Jean a sad, almost pitying look, and set a hand on Jean’s shoulder, but whatever advice he had to go with the motion was lost as Marco had finished putting on clothing.

The first few minutes of Mario Kart were undeniably and noticeably odd, since Jean hadn’t made a protest when he’d been forced to chose Toad instead of Bowser. However, by the time of their second race, Jean tactlessly pushed Connie off the couch in order select his player.

“You _asshole_ ,” Connie screeched, and tried to grab Jean’s controller from his grip, “I’m Bowser- I’m always Bowser, Sasha’s always Yoshi, and Marco’s always Mario- there is no other way, you’re not going to butt in on this.”

“You’ve played Mario Kart without me?” Jean accused, glaring at everyone in the room individually. He’d reluctantly and surprisingly compartmentalized any revelations from Connie and Sasha’s entrance, burying the truth for once in his life as a desperate attempt at self-preservation.

Marco smiled guiltily, to which Jean suppressed a smile and glared half-heartedly, and Connie seized the opportunity to claim Bowser as his own.

“Bowser’s a pretty dumb choice, anyway,” Sasha said; she never had to complain about choices, much, since throughout her Mario Kart career, she was always speedy enough to chose her favorite, Yoshi, before anyone else. “He’s the biggest loser in the entire Mario series, he literally loses every game. The cards are in his favor and he still loses.”

Jean smirked smugly at Connie, who was regretting his choice, and Sasha added, “He probably fits you pretty well though, Jean!”

The smug looks reversed, and Connie gleamed at Jean. As the two glowered childishly at each other, Sasha started the race, and both her and Marco left them in the dust.

“You suck,” Jean said, falling of the edge for a third time midway through the race. Not wanting to admit that he was honestly terrible, he ranted angirly about something completely irrelevant to the impending outcome of the race, “You both suck. I can’t believe you. I can’t believe either of you, you always chose the same characters, and Yoshi fits, but Mario, Marco? That is the _dumbest decision_ -”

“Mario’s one letter off from my name-”

“-that is the _dumbest reasoning_ ,” Jean accused, as he careened off a cliff, “One letter makes a big difference.”

Marco hummed, and tossed a leader shell; Sasha, somehow managing to watch everyone’s screen, screeched to a halt and let Connie pass her.

Jean, however, continued ranting, in a sorry attempt to cover his own ineptness, “Seriously. I worked with a guy named-” Jean cut himself off, instead replacing the blank with a squelching screech as Sasha hit him with a precisely aimed green shell.

The bickering intensified, and much to Marco’s distress everyone got much more into Mario Kart than he had anticipated. Jean had, at one point, ripped everyone else’s controllers out from the system, Sasha had caused havoc just by her own skill, and Connie would shove his feet near anyone who was winning.

It only snowballed from there, with Connie and Jean shoving each other off the couch and into a lump of tangled cords on the floor, and Sasha perching herself on the armrest of the couch to avoid the chaos. In a moment of resignation, Marco set his controller down in the middle of the race and unplugged the console entirely.

The other three looked up in shock.

“No more Mario Kart,” Marco said, looking pointedly at the three on the floor, “You’re all terrible. I have no idea how adding Jean managed to make Mario Kart so much worse.”

Jean accepted his fate readily, setting the controller on the floor. and Connie stared blankly at the television as if the game would suddenly return.

When Connie had finally come to terms with the fact that Mario Kart was not going to return, he slouched into the couch and said, “Hey, I heard you guys beat the firefighters at the Kindergarten thing, since they forgot the truck and the dalmatians so they couldn’t keep interest for more than a couple of minutes.”

Marco paused, then looked to Jean, “That was a competition?”

Jean looked to the ground, biting his upper lip, and Marco probed again, “Against firefighters? What on Earth do you guys have against them, anyway?”

“Only that they’re complete assholes,” Sasha pipped up, finally sitting on the couch like a normal human being, “They make people want to buy dalmatians for their kids! Dalmations. And dalmatians are great dogs, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no way that first time dog owners know how to take care of them since they’re so damn stubborn, and they just end up in-”

“-in shelters, and very untrained, and it’s a very important issue and also they have an _ungodly_ high approval rating even though they’re generally more incompetent than we are, the most they do is get people off from the top of malls. We are having a public affairs crisis and they just get away with doing nothing and getting everything,” Jean cut her off. Marco had brought his hand up to rub his temples, evidently not anticipating such a visceral response. He eyed Connie wearily, anticipating an equally loud protest.

“Eh, I’m with Jean” Connie said, finally setting his controller down, “I don’t like the fact that they win the popularity contest.”

Marco snorted and Jean hissed, “That’s not what I said at all.”

They eventually settled down, and both Connie and Sasha left after they’d ordered an overly complicated pizza order and consumed it in record time. As Jean attempted and failed to squash the cardboard boxes into the trash, he was most entirely bothered about how unbothered he was by squashing cardboard boxes into Marco’s tiny-ass trash can.

 

* * *

 

Jean almost protested going to Dunkin Donuts after the revelation at Mario Kart, but decided against it as that might have been suspicious. Additionally, he still had to deny any revelation happened whatsoever, so there shouldn’t have been any trepidation at going in the first place.

While Jean tried to convince himself that this was still the same not-date as before, even though he was quite terribly at convincing himself in the first place. He spent most of his time hastily taking donuts and tapping his fingers on the table, created a very thin veneer of normalness.

“Hey, Jean,” Marco said, and Jean dropped the donut hole he had been eating to the floor. Marco had tried to start conversation before, but Jean was so caught up in pretending to be normal that he hadn’t noticed the first time.

Marco watched the donut hole fall to the floor, but his eyes didn’t stay on it, instead focusing on Jean as he continued, “You’ve been sleeping over at my house quite a bit the past few weeks.”

Jean froze, not looking up at Marco for an expression to follow and instead looking at the lone, abandoned donut hole lying on the floor. This was it; this was the moment that Marco would piece together everything. He’d probably pieced it together much earlier than Jean had, knowing him.

“And if it’s going to continue, it’s pretty dumb of you to continue to pay for your own place,” Marco continued, and Jean wasn’t exactly paying attention and more inwardly panicking.

“So you might as well move your stuff into the spare room, if you don’t sleep there yourself,” Marco concluded, and Jean snapped his head back up from the donut to look at Marco.

“You’re asking me to move in with you,” Jean repeated, slowly, and Marco nodded just as slowly. Whatever plan Jean had developed to deal with the situation of being found out was now useless, so he blinked then said, “Oh, yeah. Sure.”’

For a moment, Marco looked like he was about to say something more on the topic, and Jean knew it would have been damning information on his own compartmentalized Mario Kart revelation but Marco never spoke up.

It’s discerning and comforting all at once; Marco knew, but the damning hesitation created by their fuck-up had prevented him from speaking up on it.

And Jean, selfishly, decided to run with it.

“I’m pretty sure if I use your truck, I can get all my shit over there in a weekend,” Jean said, and Marco perked up considerably. “I have like, a futon, clothes, kitchen shit. And a much, much better TV than the bullshit foot-deep monster you have.”

“You’re not taking up your couch though,” Marco responded, “That thing’s in the worst condition and it probably has mold growing inside of it.”

Jean scrunched his face, “It’s better than your piece of shit, it’s not some granny-patterned loveseat-”

“-it also doesn’t contain potential, mysterious creatures in its depths,” Marco said, “And, plus, I don’t want to really attempt to move a couch up my stairs. It could get stuck, couch physics is impossible to reason with.”

“Couch physics is not a valid excuse,” Jean retorted, feeling overly protective of his couch, “It’s not like if we get it stuck, we won’t be able to get it unstuck.”

“We could,” Marco responded, “I’ve read books on it. Very serious science fiction books. It’s a very peculiar position to be in, for sure, but it is very, very possible.”

“You’ve read books on couch physics,” Jean drawled, trying to keep a straight face.

Marco hummed, and sipped at his coffee, winning the conversation with a cheap reference to flippant science fiction. Jean couldn’t keep a straight face anymore, but hid his amused smirk behind a coffee cup.

And, sitting in Dunkin Donuts and losing his couch to someone who honestly believed that couch physics functioned on a different level than regular physics, Jean admitted to himself that he was completely, irrevocably, in love with this dumb man and completely, irrevocably, _fucked_.


	3. Trust Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh... god. Well. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Holidays, Happy New Years. This took longer than anticipated, but I've reached this point now, so the last chapter is here and ready I suppose.
> 
> Thank yous to well. A lot of people. Frey, Canon, Charl, Rachel, Saro, Katie, Mara. For support and putting up with me during this trek. 
> 
> Nevertheless, there may be some notes at the end, but here's the last chapter of give and take: Trust Fall.

Jean found himself standing in line at Dunkin Donuts with unneeded apprehension, ignoring whatever drifting on non platonic feelings he had. He didn’t even know where the line between friendship and _not_ lay, but he’d hurdled over it without even noticing and now was stuck with the bubbling apprehension about what was _next._

He could look at his track record with almost everything and know that, no matter what, next would probably be a case of “something went wrong” and that wasn’t something he was willing to risk.

So instead of saying anything, he balanced on the back of his heels and waited as Marco ordered the same box of donuts and the same boring drip coffee.

It took him a couple second and Ilse tapping her pen on the counter to notice that Marco had, in fact, finished ordering.

“You know what I want,” Jean mumbled, grabbing his wallet out of his back pocket.

Ilse did not grab a coffee cup, and instead attempted a deadpan face but failed at maintaining the expression, “This sounds like a drug deal, sir, I’m afraid if this secrecy continues I’ll have to call the police.”

The corners of Jean’s lips pulled in opposite directions trying to smirk and grimace at the same time, making a disgruntled and frankly entertainingly contorted expression, “I am the police.” He shoved five dollars on the counter with as much bitterness as a business transaction could have.

“What would you like to order?” Ilse responded; the bitterness had been ignored.

Jean narrowed his eyes, trying to glare menacingly, and failed. “Large Dunkaccino,” Jean responded, his face showing solemnity unwarranted for ordering a sugary beverage.

Just as Jean predicted would happen, Ilse tapped her pen on the selected cup, pen uncapped and hovering suspiciously over the side, “Name?”

“Kirstein,” Jean sighed, with a look of utter defeat.

Ilse blinked in surprise, then smirked slightly and scribbled a name onto the cup that was obviously not “Kirstein.”

Jean didn’t bother protesting, and instead just turned to wait for his drink, and when he got it, looked at the scrawled name of “cherry pit,” then shoved a cardboard drink holder over it.

Marco had already opened the box and was chewing on a cinnamon and sugar donut when Jean sat down. He’d been watching Jean’s antics with a look of amusement hidden behind a coffee cup, and Jean ignored it and grabbed a chocolate donut hole from the box with speed but not grace.

In an attempt to dissuade Marco from pursuing Jean’s embarrassing failures at convincing a barista to write down his real name, he started with failed nonchalance, “You are so lucky that the Fallfest was canceled this year.”

Marco raised an eyebrow, more of an urge to continue than confusion at the quickly introduced conversation, and Jean continued, “The whole event last year was basically point out which idiotic teenage kid’s trying to smuggle in booze, and attempt to confiscate it.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad-”

“-have you _seen_ me interact with teenagers-”

Marco snorted, didn’t attempt to argue that specific point, then questioned again, “And why would they even try to smuggle alcohol into a fall fest?”

“Well,” Jean said, and Marco braced himself for whatever brash opinion he knew would follow, “It was called Oktoberfest, but they didn’t sell any _beer_. None at all. So I refuse on principle to call it Oktoberfest.”

“I didn’t know you were so passionate about German holidays,” Marco commented idly, taking a glazed donut hole and rolling it on his palm.

Jean snorted, “Have you _looked_ at my last name, I am so German.”

Giving Jean an incredulous look, Marco ate his donut slowly and in more bites than it required, leaving Jean to doubt his conviction. Then, Marco leaned back in his chair and said, “Name three Germans, not including Hitler.”

Jean blinked, then gave Marco a smug look, “Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

“He’s swiss,” Marco shook his head, and Jean balched.

“David Hasselhoff,” Jean said, with a slightly less smug look than before.

And just as easily as before, Marco refuted the claim, “American.”

Jean took a longer pause, chewed on a donut, then put a finger up and said with confidence, “ _Einstein_.”

“One down, three to go,” Marco stated, and Jean’s confidence vanished and his face fell. Drinking his sugary nightmare coffee with misplaced stubborn determination, he tried to think of another German, failed.

“You’re an idiot,” Marco finally said with a shake of his head, and Jean couldn’t bring himself to be offended, instead glaring with obvious overdramatics.

Marco looked to Jean, saw Jean’s dramatics, then smiled lightly. “Less of an insult and more of a term of endearment,” Marco clarified, then looked slightly embarrassed himself, but didn’t look away.

“My last name probably means something important in German,” Jean mumbled with a roll of his eyes, and Marco laughed without an attempt at tact.

“I’m sure it does,” Marco hummed, and Jean shoved a donut into his mouth and looked to the side. If he had to worry about anything, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a lack of mutuality. They’d thrown themselves over the platonic line together.

Similarly to how Jean recovered from most experiences in the past few weeks, Jean ended his temporary state of analysis by eating another donut, specifically a chocolate one, hoping Marco wouldn’t eat the last of them. Much to his relief, Marco also seemed to pick himself up by trying to finish off the box, and their donut date returned to a comfortable norm.

As the munchkins dwindled down, Jean made a clandestine attempt to steal the last of the chocolate donuts, and Marco finally decided not to turn the other cheek anymore.

“Jean,” he said, and Jean nearly dropped the chocolate donut hole on the floor. He tried to cover up his lack of casualness with an over-dramatic shrug, but exposed the donut in the process.

Looking from Marco to the donut and then to Marco again, he sighed and said, “You can have the last one if you really want it.” He managed to look completely defeated over losing a chocolate donut hole.  

Marco rubbed his temples, “Jean, I don’t like the chocolate ones.”

“That’s impossible,” Jean spluttered, pointing the donut hole at Marco, “The chocolate ones are the best ones. Second only to the powdered sugar ones.”

“I don’t like either,” Marco hummed, and just to prove it, grabbed one of the cinnamon donuts, “I think the only one we both liked were the jelly filled ones.”

Jean contemplated this admission, as Marco continued to eat the donuts that were, noticeably, not chocolate or powdered sugar. He’d been trying to take the chocolate ones as quickly as possible for the past week, after both of them became easily disgusted at the mere presence of jelly-filled donuts after consuming three boxes in one night.

“Huh,” he finally decided on, and ate the chocolate donut hole he’d been so secretive in trying to steal.

* * *

Just as the donut dates continued, the nightmares did as well.

Jean had deluded himself into thinking that the nightmares would go away as time went on, but that hadn’t proven to be the case. He’d still wake up, clung to Marco and short of breath, unable to move before he disassociated nightmare from reality. He never had the same nightmare twice, but no matter what the content matter he would be left with the same leftover emotions of terror and loss.  

They didn’t get worse; if anything, his nightmares got less severe, but they were still _there_ , reminding him of the uncomfortable and terrifying reality that he’d almost lost Marco. And it was always that. It remained irritatingly consistent, and he couldn’t help but feel that the remembrance permeated into his decisions on the job or in his self-inflicted stance of silence on his feelings.

The nightmares became an unfortunate constant, an expectation Jean didn’t want to have but still persisted.  

What Jean didn’t expect was the fact that he wasn’t always alone in his restlessness.  

Marco never brought it up, and Jean suspected it wasn’t because he was hiding having nightmares but because he never woke up. It wasn’t even very noticeable Marco was having a nightmare; he’d grip the sheets and mutter a few incoherent words, which could be written off, but his heart rate would spike convictingly. In line with his own luck, he probably didn’t remember them in the morning.  

Jean was entirely unsure what to do about the whole thing, so he just would slowly dislodge himself from Marco and wait until his heartbeat leveled, trying not to wake him up.

* * *

By the time Halloween rolled around, the topic of mutual affections had been successfully sidestepped a grand total of three times. It was less than Jean had anticipated, all things considered, and the side steps were done in such mutual grace that it assuaged any potential awkwardness.

However, Jean knew that Halloween could easily break the count. He had used Marco’s injury as a poor excuse to getting out of a patrol on Halloween, but he hadn’t considered the repercussions that that meant he would have to host the fourth-annual Halloween Police Radio Drinking Night.

The first year he’d been on the force, he wasn’t assigned a Halloween patrol because he’d only been there for a couple of weeks. Jean hadn’t been very bitter about the event at first, but it was a curse in disguise, because the events that transpired on Halloween in their godforsaken district had inspired a drinking game.

Whoever didn’t have patrol on Halloween would construct an absurd but highly possible list of things that could potentially go wrong on Halloween, and the lists would be shuffled amongst the group. Then, they’d sit around the police scanner with cheap jello shots and take one whenever an item on the list happened.

By nature of the game, most drinking game veterans would choose events that were likely to happen, as a deathwish to whoever got their list.

Last year, Jean had Sasha’s list. He didn’t quite remember what had happened that night, but he was pretty sure, by comments a few weeks later, and nearly every day since, that he’d rambled endlessly about House.

He was also pretty sure, by the fact that the group hadn’t met his gaze for a week, that he’d rambled endlessly about he’d fucked up royally and got a kid killed.

This year, he really didn’t want to make the same mistake of getting completely wasted, and he didn’t want Marco to, either.

Unfortunately, by avoiding Halloween patrol, Jean set himself up for another repeat drinking game disaster. Plus, the invitee list this year was putting the odds in favor of yet another drunken night of nonsense and potential trainwrecks.

In a last minute fit of non-commitment, Jean leaned back into the couch with a look of despair and shuffled through a list of potential excuse for canceling the party that Marco might accept. The only glaring possibility that Marco wouldn’t see through completely was to set the apartment on fire, but he wasn’t willing to go through the hassle of dealing with the fire department.

His exhaustive mental search proved futile as the doorbell rang, and Jean wasn’t agile enough to stop Marco from lifting himself off the couch and answering.

“We brought jello shots,” came the voice from the door, which Jean placed as Sasha, which created unwanted apprehension. He anticipated the other half of Sasha’s “we” before Marco let them in the door.

Connie drug in what Jean could suspect was the cooler of death, more than likely filled to the brim with jello shots. Giving a pointed glare to the cooler, Jean refused to pull himself off the couch and help Connie drag it in. Marco could be presentable and amicable, but Jean outright refused.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t avoid human contact forever, as Sasha plopped herself down on the couch next to him.

Jean didn’t spare her a look, and stared at the television with an attempted blank expression. It wasn’t very successful, and he looked like a pouting child.

Sasha sighed. She could normally poke fun at Jean for hours about pouting, but instead she said,  “They’re not really jello shots.”

Jean’s blank expression became much less successful. He attempted to continue looking at the television and failed, turning to Sasha with a half-open mouth and furrowed brows.

“I’m serious! There’s absolutely not a trace of alcohol in them, just jello,” Sasha protested even though Jean hadn’t said anything, not bothering to keep her voice low about this matter.

“Why would you bring fake jello shots to a _drinking game_ ,” Jean hissed, even though he knew the answer. If he was going to be pitied for the events of the year before, they should at least be open about it.

“Because, well,” Sasha started, then scratched the back of her neck, “Last year… wasn’t good. And we don’t want a repeat incident.”

And, despite being the one to probe for that response, it still didn’t make him feel any better. “If you wanted to avoid accidentally throwing me a pity party, you shouldn’t have forced me to be the host for your fucking drinking game,” Jean said.

“We don’t want a repeat incident,” Sasha repeated, “For _any of us_. Marco almost died, Connie and I, well. We didn’t find the body when it was alive, but...”

She didn’t finish her sentence, and Jean really wished she had. At least it would be better than the uncomfortable silence hanging between them.

“And you don’t want another incident,” Jean parroted for her in an attempt to move something forward, and Sasha nodded slowly, “But you still insisted on making fake jello shots for fun?”

For a moment Jean regretted changing the topic so easily since, since Sasha didn’t react immediately, but when she did it was a full-on Cheshire grin.

“We’re not telling Ymir they’re fake,” Sasha gleamed, and it took a second for Jean to connect the dots but he gleamed back.

When Ymir and Christa finally arrived, Jean could tell that Marco knew about the fake jello shots because he looked distinctly guilty. Jean would be mad that Marco was spoiling the secret, but he knew that his own expression could just as easily foil Sasha and Connie’s plan.

Marco didn’t say anything, instead just set up the police scanner and set his own list of potential events to drink to in the center of the living room. Everyone else followed suit, and Connie dragged the cooler in front of the couch.

Sitting in a circle around the pile of lists, everyone made a not-so-blind grab at what they thought would be the easiest list to play. Jean had tried to grab what he thought was Ymir’s- she never put effort into it, and would just jot down “teenagers do something stupid” as her single item list- but he instead grabbed Connie’s.

He read over the list solemnly; he was going to be eating a lot of jello.

Jean looked over to the rest of the room to see if they had just as bad of a fate. Ymir looked smug, and Jean suspected she got her own list. Connie had gotten Sashas, as Sasha smirked with the air of victory. Marco had gotten something apparently confusing, as he hadn’t stopped reading over his list.

“Marco,” Jean said, and Marco looked up. Jean motioned to Marco’s list, then tilted his head to the side.

Marco looked from his list to Jean, then shook his head, “I still don’t understand why you have something against firemen.”

Jean snorted; Marco must have grabbed Jean’s own list, then, with the top item being “take a shot if the firefighters make us look bad.”

As Jean started explaining his completely rational detestment for the second time, Sasha and Connie started explaining their complete rationality over him, and Marco turned desperately to who he thought would be the one rational person in the room, Christa.

She gave him a look of sympathy, and Marco felt slightly validated in his lack of understanding, but before she could respond, Ymir looked at Christa and not Marco as she spoke up, “Firefighters are just selfless, idiotic, martyrs, who don’t value their own lives at all.”

That, apparently, had been enough to derail Christa’s sympathies, as she glared at Ymir with intent that Marco didn’t think stemmed from wanting to defend firefighters, and an intent he didn’t want to touch with a fifty foot pole.

Marco quickly regretted opening this can of worms. He looked on with a strange, foreign aloofness as everyone explained over him why firefighters sucked. Then, he shook his head and turned on the radio in a desperate attempt to stop the conversation around him.

It took a good ten minutes for conversation to skip from the apparently multitudes of reasons to hate firefighters to the police radio. In order to speed up the process, Marco passed around the fake jello shots in another desperate maneuver.  

Sasha and Connie couldn’t look at their jello shots without giggling to themselves; Marco set it next to him, looking from his shot to Ymir and Christa every few seconds. Jean held onto his jello shot with muted disinterest, finally paying attention to the center stage of the night; the broadcast of the rest of the squad’s misfortunes.

The firefighter hate had stopped just in time for the first, predictably absurd, event.

The radio buzzed, and through the static comes Levi’s voice, a deadpanned tone attempting to hide tired exasperation.

“There’s a public disturbance near Karanese, a man on his roof is playing a trumpet.”

The group collectively groaned, as the event was an annual one that nearly everyone put on their list, and everyone but Sasha and Ymir down one of the jello shots. Christa gave her shot a gaze of confusion, and her eyebrows were still knit in confusion as she grabbed another container.

Sasha and Connie’s plan was, more than likely, not going to work.

However, Christa hadn’t been the only one perplexed by the result of the event. Marco made a similarly baffled look, directed at Jean instead of his jello shot.

It took Jean a second to realize that Marco hadn’t been aware that the Halloween Trumpet Disturbance was a regular event, so he just gave Marco a quick shrug, “Every year.”

Despite the explanation coming out of nowhere and without prompting, it was enough for Marco to understand, so he shrugged in return and leaned over to grab another jello shot.

The radio continued, but Ymir still hadn’t drank. A woman had called in, very concerned confused about her location, and asked for police assistance. By the time the police arrived, she had already found her destination, much to the officer’s disgruntlement. A couple called, too drunk to remember where they had parked their car, but too wasted to drive home anyway, so poor Hannah and Franz were left to drive the two back to their home. One caller phoned the police multiple times, convinced their mail had been stolen, and called each time with increased aggression until, finally, called to apologize, as they’d just left the mail on the counter.

Seeing as Ymir had written her own list and wasn’t going to drink any time soon, Marco and Jean had started a guessing game as to which event would end in an arrest. Jean was right, most of the time, and while Marco started off guessing with a fifty fifty chance of being right, he got on the right foot rather quickly.

It wasn’t necessarily that Marco was getting better at it; it was just that he noticed that, whenever Jean thought an event would end in arrest, his eyebrow would twitch. It probably should have been considered cheating, but given the fact it was a guessing game to provide some amusement when their drinking game had failed, he wasn’t going to feel too bad about it.

The most interesting event they had was one, singular man creating a roadblock with his Hummer in the middle of the Maria, preventing a large flow of traffic. He’d claimed to be protesting the police force, which everyone just shrugged at since there could be real reasons to be angry with the police, but then it turned out he was blaming the police force for _wasting taxpayer money_.

There was a collective groan, and any mercy anyone felt for the man disappeared. Marco sighed lightly, and Connie and Sasha dramatically fell to the ground in mock anguish. The schtick of “the police force is wasting our money” wore very thin, especially coming from a man in a Hummer.

More details slowly unfolded, especially as the man himself got louder. Jean furrowed his eyebrows at the the radio, and Marco watched him carefully. He didn’t say anything until Mikasa was trying to arrest the man.

“I know that guy,” Jean said, and everyone turned from the radio to look at him, “I know that guy! He’s the fucking manager at the shitty-ass Dunkin Donuts the next district over, he doesn’t even _live_ here.” He did not explain _why_ he knew the guy- he’d gotten into an argument with him over buying out the store’s jelly-filled munchkins.

“Do you mean _go here_ ,” Connie supplied unhelpfully, and Sasha smirked and elbowed him. Christa added more helpfully, “So he’s causing all this trouble for taxes he doesn’t even pay?”

Ymir smirked, and wrapped an arm around Christa, nudging her in the side, “What a piece of shit, he should be knocked down a peg, shouldn’t he?”

Christa, in all her effort, tried to glare at Ymir but it came off as an excited grin and Marco quickly turned back to the radio, “Uh, we haven’t figured out if he’s been arrested yet. Mikasa arresting five people is on my list, so I sort of need to know.”

At the least, that quelled the unsettling air of plotting in the room enough so that they could quiet down and listen for the next event. It was pretty average- high school kids being arrested at a party for underaged drinking, but Ymir finally took a shot.

The room, still quieted from listening to the radio, stilled. Connie and Sasha watched with unsuccessfully muted anticipation, Marco looked at the ceiling, and Jean took a shot.

Ymir set the plastic container down with a confused and dissatisfied look, “There isn’t a kick.”

Connie blinked owlishly, and Sasha’s face fell dramatically. Marco simply leaned back further, investigating the ceiling with a fine-toothed comb.

And Jean, unable to contain the lie any longer, snorted. Ymir narrowed her eyes at Jean, then the rest of the room

“Who’s the one that forgot the alcohol in the jello shots,” Ymir stated. It wasn’t really a question. Marco scratched under his nose, and it looked oddly hilarious since his neck was still craned looking at the ceiling. Everyone else attempted very bad poker faces; Christa smiled sheepishly, having figured it out earlier, Jean’s mouth became a very thin line, Sasha looked at Connie, and Connie looked at Sasha and giggled.   

Ymir narrowed her eyes, pinpointing Connie, then laughed.

“So you didn’t want to ruin the fun like Jean did last year, huh?” she said. Marco turned quickly and suddenly, staring at Ymir with alert and prepared defensiveness. Christa leaned away from Ymir and hissed “ _Ymir_.”

Jean felt some vague validation that the incident last year had, for sure, been him, then realized where the conversation was headed. He gave Marco a terrified look, but wasn’t able to say something before Ymir continued.

“You don’t want to get wasted and actually have to face the fact that you fucked up?” Ymir said, and Connie hadn’t moved an inch.

Christa hissed “Ymir” again, but Ymir spoke over her, “You haven’t even been able to look at Reiner for weeks, you can’t even bring yourself to take a fucking _jello shot_ because you can’t admit to yourself that you-”

“ _YMIR_ ,” Christa pulled fully away from Ymir, standing up and knocking the radio over. Ymir didn’t respond, and Marco used the lapse to add, “I think the game’s over.”

Ymir still hadn’t said anything, since Christa was glowering down at her, and didn’t say anything until Christa pulled her up and dragged her to the door. Even then, it was just a half-assed “Bye” as Christa shoved her out of the door.

The room quieted again, with only the hum of the radio preventing it from being silent. Connie still hadn’t moved. Sasha had grabbed Connie’s hand sometime during the debacle, and Marco had shifted over and put an arm around the other man’s shoulders.

“I think we have Lord of the Rings,” Jean provided, staring at the scene in front of him then to Marco’s collections of DVDs.

“Are you sure it’s a legitimate copy,” Marco said. Jean wondered why Marco would care about pirated movies, then realized the last time he’d tried to comfort someone with movies they’d been porn.

“ _Yes_ ,” Jean hissed, and Sasha gave him a look of confusion, “I’ll just, go get them and just. Get seated on the couch.”

It wasn’t a very big couch, but they managed to tetris themselves into a reasonable position- reasonable by everyone’s standards but Jean’s- and start on the Lord of the Rings marathon. Jean knew he’d eventually have to dislodge himself from the couch to put in the next DVD and really didn’t see the point in staying there now, but stayed there anyway.

* * *

Jean really didn’t want to have to worry about the plastic container ridden floor until the morning, but Marco had insisted that they weren’t going to leave the floor a mess so he reluctantly and lazily helped clean up the remains of the party.

Shoving a half-eaten jello shot into a plastic bag, Jean didn’t bother picking up the neighboring containers and just set his half-empty bag on the counter.

“That didn’t go as bad as I thought it would,” Jean said, and Marco paused mid-lean, shook his head, and picked up the next container from the floor.

Leaning against the counter and making no motion to pretend he was cleaning, Jean continued, “I thought we’d all be completely wasted by the end of it.”

Marco hummed in response, again not vocalizing any protest but obviously not agreeing with what Jean was saying. Trying to provoke some complaint, or whatever complaint Marco obviously had, Jean said, “Ymir wasn’t exactly wrong.”

Stalling again, this time for much longer than the last time, Marco didn’t bother picking up another container. “No, but it wasn’t her place,” Marco eventually said.  

“It might have been the truth, but it wasn’t,” he paused,  “Well, it wasn’t very tactful.” And then, keeping his explanation laconic, he returned to picking up the last few containers.

As Marco shoved his and Jean’s plastic bags of jello shots into the trash, Jean watched Marco with the hopes of Marco continuing, or at least for some reason why Marco was acting unendingly terse and almost secretive about his opinion on the matter.

Then, Marco let out a large, almost infectious yawn, and rubbed at his eyes.

He was just tired.

“Oh,” Jean said out loud, and Marco gave him a curious and dreary-eyed look. Jean just shrugged and, despite knowing that it was probably selfish to keep Marco awake, asked, “I do shit like that all the time.”

Marco blinked slowly, having some difficulty following the thread of conversation, and said, “It’s not always a good thing. Not everyone wants or needs to hear the truth, and you have to consider their perspective, too.”

“What about you?” Jean asked quickly, and noticing Marco’s blank, tired stare, added, “With me. The whole, untactful honesty thing.”

Giving Jean a sloppy smile, Marco tilted his head, “I appreciate it, I think.” Then, with an equally sloppy and equally affectionate wave, he trudged to the bedroom.

Jean figured that meant goodnight. He spent a couple more minutes in the living room, spotting and cleaning any extra rubbish left around, then followed suit, not bothering to change into something more comfortable.

Instead, he crawled into what had grown to be his side of the bed, and with some hesitation, broke his tacit rule of only curling into Marco if the other man was already asleep, and wrapped around him, pressing his nose into Marco’s neck.

He could feel Marco’s heartbeat speed up slightly, but after a couple of minutes, calm down to a slower tempo than before.

And, soon enough, Jean’s heartbeat followed suit.

* * *

Despite Marco still technically being on work leave, Jean had managed to convince Levi that he was well enough to help with security at the next high school football game. They needed people, for the most part, to point out which students were trying to sneak in alcohol, and Jean had, somehow, managed to argue that “people looking for kids with booze wasn’t exactly a job you needed to fire a gun at.”

Maybe Levi just suspended the leave because he was tired of being argued with, but Jean wasn’t going to question it.

They hadn’t found anyone with alcohol yet, or anyone suspicious, but the game hadn’t even begun.

“This,” Jean said, adding an over dramatic pause, “is the boring shit you’ve been missing.”

Marco smiled, but if faded quickly. “Still missed it, though,” he commented, and didn’t elaborate, not that there was much need to.

Jean rolled his eyes and ignored the unsaid elaboration, “This is basically Fallfest two-point-oh. You point out kids with booze, call them in or cuff them yourself. Get to witness the full spectrum of idiot teenage protesting and attempts at avoiding the law.”

“We’re plenty exposed to that,” Marco quipped, and Jean rolled his eyes again, this time with a contradictory smile on his face.

It didn’t take very long for the both of them to spot teenagers failing at being conspicuous. Jean had a good eye for teenage mayhem but bad tactics at actually stopping them, and Marco wasn’t as easy to spot the culprits but much better at dealing with them.

However, just like their dumb game in the middle of a not-really-drinking game, Marco got _better_.

And this time, it wasn’t from watching Jean’s expressions. It was purposefully not. Marco would watch carefully as Jean pointed out some teenage culprits, listening to whatever rambling explanation he had for why, but when it came to pointing out them himself, he refused to even look at Jean.

It was what Marco needed; he needed to get more comfortable with his own judgement calls.  So he was getting better, and Jean couldn’t help but feel idiotically envious.

* * *

Jean’s limit on hiding things- it was more of a singular, pinpointed _thing_ , if he was being honest with himself- was wearing thin. It wasn’t that he was incapable of it; he’d spent half the beginning of his time with Marco pretending that he’d left the NYPD because of a bad roommate. But now it felt unspeakably off and left a bad taste in his mouth, that he could only ignore with, ironically, talking more with Marco.

And that, naturally, meant more Dunkin Donuts, and more dealing with Ilse.

This time, Jean hadn’t even bothered seeing what Ilse had scribbled on his cup, and instead tried to shove the sleeve on as quickly as possible. He suffered the misfortune of spilling his entire drink on himself, and had to order another drink with coffee dripping down his chin.

Still soaked in coffee and still ignoring what new tidbit Ilse had written, Jean sat across from Marco, who instead of giving sympathy said, “That was embarrassing.”

And, in a moment he’d soon regret, Jean replied, “Not the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.”

“Oh?” Marco said, with such poorly feigned innocence that if Jean wasn’t being questioned about the most embarrassing thing he’d ever done he’d laugh.

Jean’s mouth drew into a thin line at an attempt to dissuade Marco from pursuing this line of inquiry, but he folded rather quickly.

He didn’t want to make his count of repressed emotions three, and supreme embarrassment really wasn’t worth it.

“This might take a while,” Jean said, and he predicted Marco’s one-shoulder shrug, “So- when I first joined the NYPD, I didn’t really get off to a good start with the rest of my team.”

Marco nodded, eating a donut hole with rampart interest that Jean wished he would try to hide, “And not really my fault, either. The rest of my team were fucking assholes of the highest degree, so naturally, we didn’t get along very well.”

“You’d fit right in,” Marco pipped in.

Jean spoke over him, giving Marco a stern look as to not interrupt, “This one guy, Marlo- Marlo was a complete _dick_. After about five minutes of meeting me, he said that his goal wasn’t really to work with us but to climb the police ladder or whatever because the higher-ups were corrupt and he was going to stop it-”

Marco interrupted despite the stern look, “-that’s not that bad.”

“He was turning us into stepping stones!” Jean held his coffee tightly, thought about how he’d gotten himself to admit this information, then released the drink.

“You may be reading into it,” Marco said lightly, and Jean shook his head.

“He hated me from the start, too. When I told him you know, basic information on why I’d joined the force because hey, maybe I could earn a nice living without being a lawyer, he told me I was in it for the wrong reasons and called me scum.”

Marco, having realized that that was probably where most the antipathy came from, gave Jean a sympathetic look and passed him the donuts.

“And Hitch wasn’t better either,” Jean started, despite not introducing to Marco who Hitch was, “She just gauded us on! Didn’t try to stop us from fighting- ever- and would even bait us. It was awful. _She_ was awful.”

“You’re getting wildly off topic,” Marco said, almost placatingly.

Jean shook his head, “Yeah, whatever. Anyway, so the point is- I didn’t- and still don’t- like this guy. So, the first weekend I had, I made it my personal goal to somehow prank him.”

Marco raised an eyebrow, seeming to tease that that wasn’t the best idea. Jean let out a small huff of breath- he’d get to it.  

“The guy had a god fucking awful haircut- an actual bowl cut, who the hell gets an actual bowl cut other than like, five year olds.”

“Off topic.”

“So, I made it my personal mission to go around New York City, collecting every coupon and ad for every single barber shop in the city.”

Marco placed a hand on his temples, looking through his fingers at Jean who just rolled his eyes and continued.

“There’s a lot of barber shops in New York. It was _dedication_. I put it all together, alphabetized, in a three ring binder and was prepared to just set it passive aggressively on his desk.”

“But,” Marco said, adding in the word both of them knew was left off.

“But when I got into work, and asked Hitch where Marlo’s desk was- I’d only just joined the force- she pointed to _my boss’s desk_.”

Making an ugly choking noise, Marco moved his hand from his forehead to his mouth in an attempt to cover the noise, but it didn’t work. Both motions had probably just been some polite ways to attempt and placate Jean’s ego, but they probably weren’t needed.

“And, well. To make the whole thing even _shittier_ , he had an _even worse haircut._ You’ll have to google him sometime- Nile Dawk, NYPD.”

And the attempts at politeness were gone, and Marco laughed openly and obviously at Jean.

It honestly didn’t bother Jean much at all.

When Marco stopped cackling, after he tied to drink his coffee once and almost spit it out to continue laughing, he said with an apologetic look to Jean’s half-hearted glare, “Okay, okay. You told me your story, I’ll tell you mine.”

The half hearted glare was replaced with open interest.

“It’s not very complicated but- alright. I was probably the oldest person in my class in the academy, which is just mostly for imagery’s sake. I was the real adult of the group, most of the class were kids who just came out of high school.”

Jean nodded, less polite in his obvious interest than Marco had been but equally obvious about it.

“And, anyway. Exams come around, and I thought I had it in the bag. It wasn’t arrogance or anything, but I had honestly practiced so much for it.”

Jean anticipated some glorious moment of Marco failing his exams, and he felt bad again because half the anticipation was spurred on by envy.

“And, well. I did well. I thought I did so well, I got really nervous during target practice but I got the bullseye.”

“This has so far not been embarrassing,” Jean deadpanned.

“And then,” Marco said, adding a pause, “I _fainted_.”

“What the _hell_ ,” Jean spurt, with a half smirk tampered by disbelief.

“And before I fainted all these young kids were looking like me like I was the greatest,” Marco continued, his face now buried in his hands and doubling up over his own embarrassing story.

The smirk, now untampered by disbelief, turned into a full-on grin. “ _Marco_ ,” Jean enunciated, not able to say much more.

“And then I _fainted_. After I passed everything, after all the stress was over I just- I fainted,” Marco repeated, still unable to unbury his hands from his face.

“That,” Jean said, “That’s about the most...”

He was unable to find an adequate word.

“I know,” Marco didn’t let Jean have the time to search for one, “I know, I know, _I know_.”

And Jean stopped searching for an adequate word and thought that, well, he wasn’t really hiding anything at this point, just deliberately not vocalizing it. And it was probably mutual, and it was probably something he should make official, but, instead, he grabbed another donut and shoved it into his mouth.

* * *

“Fold,” Jean announced dramatically, even though he’d already tossed his poker cards on the table with equal dramatics. His flailing had knocked over the neatly stacked chips in the center, making them more difficult for Marco to pick up.

Marco blinked, his poorly concealed expression of glee fading,set his cards on the table, and cocked his head to the side, “I haven’t even placed a _bet yet_.”

“No one’s that happy about a seven after the flop unless they have a full house,” Jean contested, pointing to the cards on the table. They’d drawn out two threes, a king, and a seven.

“It’s a seven,” Marco returned, “It’s in the middle of the deck. It could be for almost _anything_. I could get a straight with that, you never know what the next card is.”

“You only get excited when you have a complete hand, not a chance at a complete hand.”

“I wasn’t excited,” Marco protested, and Jean just shoved over the chips to Marco, “I have a good poker face.”

Jean did not say a word.

“Better than yours anyway,” Marco added, “You’re looking for one card to complete your straight, aren’t you?”

Jean took an intake of breath, stacked Marco’s winnings for him, and did not answer.

Nevertheless, before he shuffled the deck again, Marco looked at Jean’s hand; a four and a five, only missing a six of diamonds for not just a straight, but a straight flush.

Jean would have won if he had gotten that one card, but he wasn’t willing to bet that he’d get it and beat Marco’s full house.

* * *

With police public affairs slowly going down the drain because of the increasingly vocal protests against taxes, the force threw itself at trying to improve public affairs, even more so than before. Levi had called for a department-wide meeting on the problem, with him leading since Erwin was at a workshop, and the entire thing turned into a disaster.

Sasha had claimed, sarcastically, that public affairs was going down the drain because Jean was off the force, Jean vocally agreed, and Marco laughed too openly for a department wide meeting, and the two of them were stuck with the daunting and, frankly, terrifying task of helping Armin with a community meeting on the state of the force.

Jean groaned, Marco looked daunted at the task, and Armin released a slow, frustrated breath at the development.

Armin might have been able to deal with Marco helping at the meeting, but he was entirely unwilling to submit the public to Jean’s crass and blunt way of addressing issues. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, and instead had to work damage control.

They’d set up the public forum, with a wobbly fold-out table and three mismatched chairs and an old mic set-up that they’d have to share. Despite being held in one of the school’s gyms, the space didn’t seem to be enough, as concerned and peeved citizens filed in.

Armin turned off the microphone momentarily, and looked to who would grace him with help; Jean, balancing his chair on the back two legs and teetering to fall, and Marco, holding the back of Jean’s chair so it wouldn’t fall.

“We’re not going to tell any lies,” Armin explained, as Jean crossed his arms in childish protest and Marco looked between Armin with attention and Jean with concern, “If something comes up that could be convicting to the force, just avoid the question. Or tell the truth, but only part of it.”

“Most importantly, _do not insult anyone_ ,” Armin emphasized, and Marco looked more concerned.

“What if I _accidentally_ insult someone,” Jean said. He’d still continued pouting, but hadn’t zoned out on the lecture.

Armin paused, and gave a weary look to Marco, “That isn’t an option.”

“That’s always an option,” Marco returned.

Jean, then, ignored the entire conversation, which mostly consisted of Armin and Marco  talking about damage control without a hint a subtleness.

After a couple minutes of conversation, the starting time had approached. The poor gym filled with disgruntled citizens and unenthused students trying to get extra credit for social studies classes.

It wasn’t a bad start; a couple of easily maneuvered around questions about where tax money was going (“we’re using the public’s support to best the community in what we believe are the most efficient ways possible”), one on the ticketing policy for parked vehicles and why one particular vehicle should be ticketed (“we’re sorry, sir, but all vehicles parked on the side of the road for more than a week will be ticketed and towed”), and one on why teenagers aren’t allowed to drink (“that’s a matter of state concern, if you want to pursue a different drinking age please write to your representative”).

Jean hadn’t answered any questions up to that point, instead just making increasingly aggravated expressions to each question. Instead of insulting the public, he’d just lean over and insult them to Marco, who would then, promptly, step on Jean’s foot, for all the public to see.

However, it quickly degraded from not a bad start to a shitstorm in the making. As the questions became less and less innocent and more and more pointed, Jean became increasingly, and partially correctly, concerned that someone would bring up Berik and Marco would freak out like he had when they went to the kindergarten.

He was partially correct because someone did bring up Berik, but he missed the mark because Marco didn’t freak out. Instead, he gave a stubbornly and unwaveringly terse answer of “The reports on the incident have been published in the news, if you have any questions please look to them.”

While Marco had handled the situation with grace, Jean had grabbed the side of the table and hadn’t let go until a good minute after Marco had answered, and his knuckles stayed strained for five after that.

That wasn’t the end of the probing questions. Just as Jean calmed down, the man who’d started the traffic jam on Halloween came to the public microphone, radiating with irritation.

“Not only does this damn police force use up all our fucking tax money,” he began, “They also hire a _criminal_.”

Jean snorted, Marco looked at the ceiling, and Armin glared at both of them.

“I’m not joking, I am not joking about this,” the man continued, “I caught your criminal consultant _vandalizing my store_. I demand to speak to Erwin Smith about his department.”

“Your store is out of our district, it doesn’t matter” Jean interrupted, and the man’s anger briefly halted to confusion, then back to anger.

“Ymir- her name’s Ymir,I know her names Ymir and _you know who the fuck I’m talking about_ , stole every fucking donut in our store and broke our drive-thru window-”

“-must have caused quite the traffic jam-”

“-and you _employ her_ ,” he finished, his hands now gripping the mic stand with unwarranted aggression. Marco watched with an unsettled gaze.

Armin reached to grab the mic away from Jean, who’d managed to take over it, but Marco took it before him. With a look of unwavering determination that Jean hadn’t seen since the car chance that ended in Marco getting shot.

“We’re sorry, this is a forum for the community members,” Marco said quietly, as tactfully as he could manage, “Your district police department has authority over vandalism of your store, but ours does not.”

The man’s hands hadn’t left the stem of the microphone, instead just tightening. Marco’s available hand gripped the table and he continued, “We can direct you to your district’s police station, but if you’re going to cause a scene we’ll have to ask you to leave.”

The grip on the mic lessened, and with obvious disdain and reluctance, he stomped off, slamming the door behind him. Armin, who had been looking between Marco and the mic with uncomfortably upright posture, eased back into his seat.

Marco also slouched back into his seat, relief radiating off of him.

Jean, however, didn’t. He stared, uncomfortably and obviously, at Marco. He should, he really should, feel happy for Marco. The last time Marco had to deal with confrontation on the Berik case, he’d faltered; the last time he was confronted with someone possibly violent, he made the wrong decision.

It was such an obvious mark of improvement and Jean should feel proud and relieved, and to an extent he _did_ , but not without feeling envious and stagnant.

* * *

It was three AM in the morning, and Jean was making waffles.

He’d only gotten to sleep at around one. He wasn’t even sure if he could call it sleep, more like a glorified nap at the time people normal should sleep; at the time _he_ normally was sleeping. It hadn’t even been a nightmare this time, just restless thoughts that couldn’t be quelled.

So there he stood, in the kitchen, stirring waffle mix with untethered frustration. The batter had already lost all its clumps, but stirring endlessly as the waffle iron heated up was more fulfilling than simply waiting. Jean missed the beep of the waffle iron announcing that it had heated, but had enough practice making his shitty Bisquick waffles that he poured the batter in at the right time anyway.

The pattern was automatic enough that he could concentrate on trying to sort out his thoughts without worrying about burning Marco’s- their- apartment to the ground.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t granted the time to sort anything out over waffles, as he had failed to consider the fact that the combination of the beeping waffle iron and the actually not unappealing smell of waffles cooking could wake Marco up.

Jean didn’t even notice Marco come in; he had turned to fork the waffle from the iron when he saw Marco, leaning against the fridge with a look of confused bleariness.

“You’re making waffles at three in the morning,” Marco said, and instead of answering the implicit why, Jean shrugged, dug in the top drawer for a fork, and took out his waffle.

Jean picked up the batter to fill the iron again, but the ignored question still hung in the air, so he set the batter back down.

“Yeah,” he said, “Couldn’t sleep.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but he knew Marco had the patience, even at three in the morning. Marco didn’t say anything, he just watched Jean with a careful gaze.  

“Couldn’t really go to Dunkin Donuts either, you weren’t awake,” Jean elaborated in an attempt to further put off conversation, realized what he said was slightly incriminating and mostly embarrassing,and added, “And it’s three in the fucking morning, I don’t think Dunkin Donuts is even open.”

Marco smiled slightly, then without asking, grabbed the waffle Jean had finished making. He tore off a piece, and Jean watched as Marco ate the thing with his bare hands. He should comment on it; it was an entirely incorrect way to eat waffles, it defeated the purpose of the small square syrup holes that made the design better than pancakes.

But Jean didn’t, and he didn’t prolong conversation any longer, “You’re not a shit cop.”

The statement came out of nowhere, but neither of them were very surprised. Marco was, maybe slightly, if only because he didn’t know exactly where the statement was going.

Gripping the counter top and leaning into it, Jean continued, “I mean, not anymore. You were, and it was fine. We could make up for our shittiness together. I could rely on you to make up for my shittiness, you could make up my shittiness. The perfect shitty cop duo. Not good cop, bad cop, but shitty cop, shitty cop.”

“But you’re not anymore. You trust your own calls and you’re making the right ones, even if it’s just saying that some kid has booze or that the fucking Dunkin Donuts manager will try to cause a public disturbance,” Marco opened his mouth, apparently to add input, but Jean shook his head and denied it. “And I’m still sitting here, expecting you to pick up the slack I have with my aim. I’ve just been telling myself I don’t need to ever worry about shooting because, if that ever comes up, you’re a good shot, you’ll cover for me.”

Jean wanted to cover his own expression with his hand, with a look to the side, with anything. He knew he probably looked slightly desperate and vulnerable because he _felt_ slightly desperate and vulnerable, but he doesn’t let himself.

“But I don’t want to be a shitty cop.”

He paused, and Marco opened his mouth, but Jean filled the silence again.

“You’re not a shit cop, so I shouldn’t be. I need to know how to fucking shoot straight, and I know that it’s probably going to be some one-sided problem, but could you help me figure it out?” Jean asked, his eyes turning away from Marco for just a second in a moment of weakness.

Marco didn’t respond immediately, and when he did it was oddly soft-spoken, “Jean, it’s not one-sided at all.”

There may have been multiple meanings to that statement- there were multiple meanings to that- but Jean ignored it.

“Honestly, the entire reason I’m probably still on the force is because of your support-” Marco started, “And don’t look like it hasn’t been a big deal, or you haven’t done anything, because you have.”

Jean opened his mouth, and this time Marco shook his head to buy himself more time, “You did say that we make up for each other’s flaws-”

“-I used different wording-”

Marco waved his hand again, “But it isn’t a stagnant thing. For either of us. I learn from your strengths, you learn from mine. It’s a give and take, on both of our parts. It’s not one-sided in the slightest.”

There was a pause, inviting Jean to say something, but he couldn’t find the words, or _any_ words, so Marco continued.

“The only reason I’m making the right calls is because I’m learning from you, even though you might not think you’re teaching me, you are,” Marco said, and Jean hadn’t closed his mouth from the time he opened it, “So, well, obviously. I’ll help you with it, whatever you need.”

Leaning against the fridge and nibbling on his waffle again, Marco waited for a reaction. Jean simply closed his mouth, scratched the back of his neck, tried to think of a suitable response.

“Thanks,” he finally muttered, hoping words would come naturally after that but they didn’t.

In return, Marco smiled, then side-stepped around Jean and grabbed the bowl of batter, putting it into the fridge before Jean could protest.

Only after Marco unplugged the waffle iron did Jean complain, “Hey, I was still making waffles, you know.”

“And they would have been good waffles,” Marco said; he was still holding his half-eaten waffle. “But it’s three in the morning and time for bed.”

“That is,” Jean paused, pursing his lips in an attempt to find an argument, “true.”

Setting his waffle down on the counter- it could be dealt with in the morning- Marco put a hand on the small of Jean’s back, guiding him to the bedroom for some decent sleep.

When they both got into bed, instead of Jean curling around Marco, Marco curled around Jean, his injured arm hanging over Jean’s torso. At first, Jean wasn’t sure if he wanted this, if only because accidentally moving might end in unwanted injury. But it didn’t take long to assuage those fears, as he could feel wisps of Marco’s breath on the back of his neck and Marco’s thumb brushing lightly over his own.

He didn’t think of much else, and fell asleep before Marco did.

* * *

The next available time they had, Marco drug Jean to the shooting range, giant pink earmuffs and all. Jean had said that it wasn’t an option not to have them, so Marco would just have to show him how to shoot better in a very, very loud voice.

The loud voice plan was dropped almost immediately; it turned from trying to communicate to trying to Jean trying to scream the most profane words at the top of his lungs just to see if Marco really could hear.

He couldn’t, but everyone outside the shooting range _could_.

To avoid more embarrassment, or more of the same embarrassment, Marco tried to teach Jean with examples and absurd gestures.

To both their surprise, it worked.

Most of Jean’s problems lay in an unsteady grip and hesitation. He’d initially have a good shot, but he’d anticipate the kick-back, flinch, not follow through, and be unable to hit the target correctly.

It took quite a bit of effort to communicate this on Marco’s part but somehow, they managed. Marco had completely embarrassing gestures; he’d mimicked golfing for follow through, even though neither of them knew anything about golf. It took a bit, but Jean eventually understood, and mimicked the motion back.

They fell into a rhythm, with Marco counting down on his fingers three, two, one, then Jean shooting, and Marco telling him what went wrong. That part took quite a bit of time, but the time decreased with each shot.

Eventually, Jean hit near enough to the bullseye to call it a day. Putting the safety on the gun, he smiled weakly to Marco, who smiled with much more contagious enthusiasm back.

* * *

“Hey, Jean,” Marco said, halting in the non-existent line to the Dunkin Donuts register.

“Eh,” Jean replied. It was an earlier morning than most, and he wasn’t willing to produce a more coherent response. Marco hadn’t even bothered to look back.

“I’m getting jelly filled munchkins.”

“Whatever,” Jean said. Marco still hadn’t moved, and Jean nudged him with headbutt. He didn’t move his head away, after that.

As Marco moved forward, Jean finally realized what he’d agreed to, “Wait, wait wait wait. I don’t think I can even _look_ at jelly filled munchkins after eating four boxes in one night, you’re actually buying those _again_.”

Marco, again, did not turn around. “Yeah.”

A long pause followed. Jean wasn’t sure how to argue with that, even though it wasn’t exactly a compelling argument, “Well, fine.”

Both of them regretted the decision at first. As they opened the box, they looked at the munchkins, thinking about the unpleasant donut hangover the particular monstrosities enticed last time, and did not know how to continue.

“We can distract ourselves,” Marco said, not looking away from the donuts, “Here, awkward conversation topic of the week time, think of something and as you talk I’ll eat one.”

Jean didn’t have much of a choice but to provide, “I saw Connie stacking a stapler on Bert’s head yesterday.”

He looked up, and Marco had nodded, but still hadn’t taken a bite of the donut.

“He’s probably at least talked to Reiner again. It’s a game Sasha and Connie used to do, since he fell asleep once. Now they just do it when he’s awake.”

Marco had, at this point, shoved the entire munchkin in his mouth and swallowed it nearly whole.

Jean gaped, and Marco smiled, “Your turn.”

Grumbling, Jean wasn’t going to be beaten, and simply shoved the entire thing into his mouth at once.

Marco started, “Christa was over the other day,” but couldn’t finish as Jean swallowed the donut hole whole.

“That wasn’t fair,” Marco said, and Jean shrugged, and pushed the box over to him. Taking another donut with a dejected sigh, Marco took the smallest bite humanly possible.

“You have to talk until I’ve finished this donut,” Marco said, and Jean gaped. Marco tilted his head to the side and gave a very obviously falsely innocent smile.

“What was Christa over for the other day?” Jean asked, and Marco took an even smaller bite than before.

“She felt bad for Ymir being, well, Ymir, and offered to cook-”

“-and you didn’t _share_ -”

“-and also to-”

“-y _ou didn’t share_ -”

“-let me finish-”

“No, I know what you guys did. I saw the yarn and tie-wraps or whatever, I know you were knitting.”

Marco blinked, “Knitting?”

“Or crocheting, I don’t care about knitting semantics.”

“-it wasn’t knit-”

“ _Knitting semantics_ ,” Jean said, and, despite it not being his turn, ate a donut.

Marco dropped the entire knitting conversation and, seeing as Jean had managed a donut himself, shoved the very slowly eaten one into his mouth.

They didn’t play the awkward conversation game after that; it quickly became a race to who could eat more jelly donuts, and it, surprisingly, didn't end in another donut hangover.

* * *

Jean stood in the middle of Wal-Mart, reading over Marco’s grocery list for what seemed like the hundredth time. There were a lot of items, granted, but when Jean found them he was dismayed to find most were microwave meals. He hadn’t even gotten very much into the produce section before deciding that he was going to call Marco and ignore about everything on the list.

Waiting for about two rings, Jean shoved Marco’s list into his back pocket and started grocery shopping with his own discretion.

Marco answered but before he could get a word out, Jean said, “Your grocery list is shit.”

There was a pause, and Jean could picture the exact eyebrow raise Marco was more than likely performing, “I don’t think my handwriting was that bad.”

“You know I’m not talking about your handwriting,” Jean muttered, and shoved a box of pasta into the cart, “Can you cook _anything_ other than frozen foods?”

“I had lunchables on the list,” Marco replied.

Jean stared ahead as if Marco could see his look of disbelief, and continued to peruse the food aisles for something more acceptable than five off-brands of frozen meals.

Marco sighed on the other side of the line, “You could have just made the list yourself.”

“ _I trusted you_ ,” Jean hissed dramatically into the phone,” _I trusted you to make a list_ , and you didn’t even put _eggs_ on the list.”

“Oh,” Marco said, then laughed lightly, not participating in Jean’s over dramatic aggression, “I figured you’d remember them?”

Jean, figuring that he would remember now, made a jaunty bee-line toward the eggs and picked up one randomly, looked at the sell-by date, set it down, and picked one less randomly.

“You figured I would mention a hell of a lot of other things then, too,” Jean retorted, and didn’t bother putting the eggs in the cart yet, instead motioning dramatically with them, “You have to eat actual food.”

“We eat Dunkin Donuts _every morning_ , you can’t talk about _actual food_.”

“ _Dunkin Donuts is actual food_.”

“Uh-huh,” Marco hummed; he was set to win the argument game simply by patience and conversation fillers.

Jean looked at another box of eggs, saw an even better sell-by date, and swapped it with the one he was holding, “Whatever.”

“Are you done scolding me about my grocery list?”

“No,” Jean answered, but didn’t bring up another fault in the endlessly faulty list.

Marco figured as much, “Just be sure to buy something for dinner tonight.”

“It’s not going to be frozen.” Jean still hadn’t set the eggs in the cart, determined to find the best sell by date in the store.

“If it’s edible I’ll eat it, honestly.”

“Alright,” Jean said. He hadn’t found a better date but had the tenacity to look more.

“Alright, see you in a bit,” Marco said, “I love you, bye.”

“Love you too,” Jean said, “Bye.”

Jean eventually found the eggs with the best sell-by date, realized what he’d said, then dropped the extremely fresh eggs on the ground.

* * *

Jean hadn’t really finished his grocery shopping. He panicked, picked up his eggs and got yolk all over his hands, trekked to the self-checkout counter and purchased the paltry amount of food he’d found including the eggs, and shoved everything into one bag.

Including the dripping, broken eggs.

Then, he sent a series of texts to Connie describing the incident, (“accidentally told marco i love him”, “bc of eggs”, “i wasnt paying attention on phone he said it i said it”, “i wasnt paying attention bc of eggs”, “help”) probably ruining his phone, and wasn’t very appreciative of the response (“eggs????”). After more typo-ridden texting, he convinced Connie to let him come over to his apartment.

Connie had anticipated Jean’s arrival enough that Jean didn’t need to knock. Instead, Connie just opened the door, tilted his head to the side, and said, “Dude.” The word stretched out enough just enough to connote exasperation, with a raised pitch at the end to imply confusion.

“I think I put broken eggs in with the rest of the groceries,” Jean said, then turned to look at his parked car. He probably accidentally broke the bag, too, and probably got egg all over the inside of his already shitty car, only making it shittier.

“That’s _really_ gross,” Connie replied, “Like, really gross. Like I don’t understand how you did something so gross because of an awkward phone ‘I love you.’ I’ve done that to Mike, and he’s sort of my boss. I didn’t shit myself because of that.”

Connie thought about that for a moment, and because Jean hadn’t responded, added, “Not that much.”

“That’s really gross.”

“Not as gross as you.”

“Not as gross as _your fa_ -” Jean began, realized he was getting wildly off the reason why he was here in the first place, then cut himself off.

“You passed up a _your face_ joke,” Connie said, and Jean bit his lip as he slowly lost his patience, “You are really freaking out over a phone I love you.”

Jean let out a slow breathe, “Yes, I am.”

Connie still hadn’t let Jean into his apartment. “I don’t get it. You can just say you thought he was your mom or something.”

“Is that the same excuse you used with _your boss_ ,” Jean narrowed his eyes, and Connie didn’t feel much shame and just shrugged, “You told your boss you thought he was your mother.”

Connie remained unperturbed, “You could tell Marco you thought he was your mother!”

“ _No_.” Jean crossed his arms and regretted it, getting egg on his jacket, “Besides, I’m terrible at lying to him, no lying will work.”

“I still have no idea why you’re so worked up about this,” Connie said, “I mean, it’s pretty obviously mutual-”

“-I know _that_ -”

“-everyone at work can tell he’s in love with you, you’re in love with him-”

“- _I know_ -”

“And now he’s gone and,” Connie paused, parsing through what Jean had said, “Wait, you _know_?”

Jean scratched the back of his neck. He didn’t quite know how to explain this entire situation. “It’s pretty obvious.”

Connie opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it, looking like a burbling fish. “I don’t get it,” he said, “I don’t understand.”

“That’s new,” Jean deadpanned.

Connie did not budge, “I sort of get people. And I don’t get it. You make zero sense. Negative zero sense.”

Jean had come here to try for some advice, and only got a ping-pong match of middle school insults. Sighing, he said, “I don’t want to mess up. I don’t want to officially date or officially say I love you because I don’t want to mess up.”

Connie just made an even more confused face, and Jean didn’t remember why he’d gone to Connie instead of Sasha or Armin or anyone.

Tilting his head even further to the side, Connie said, “You’re sort of already dating?”

“Well, no shit, but it’s still _sort of_ ,” Jean enunciated, “And I don’t want to not sort of date because I fuck things up.”

Jean placed his egg-coated hand on his forehead, “I mean, I don’t think it would be a bad relationship. It would be a really good relationship. And I don’t think anything’s going to go wrong, really.”

“ _Then why_ ,” Connie asked, throwing his hands over his head, “ _Why_.”

“Because when I get good feeling about things they go _really fucking poorly_ ,” Jean said; he didn’t feel like listing his terrible exploits (pre-law, NYPD, staying in a police force) to Connie, “And I don’t want to fuck it up. I don’t want to lose him, too.”

“It’s a- he’s a lot to lose, it already almost happened once, and that wasn’t enjoyable,” he continued, “And it’s fucking terrified me since then.”

Connie didn’t respond, and Jean nearly moved the hand on his forehead over his eyes, then had the insight to use the other eggless hand instead, “So I need to somehow make this a not _officially dating thing_. I need you to help me make this a not officially dating thing. I can’t be officially dating because I can’t mess that up.”

“That’s really dumb,” Connie blurted, and Jean gave a meager snort. He didn’t want to glare or he’d have to move his hand off his eyes. “It’s gonna come up eventually.”

Jean shook his head, and swallowed thickly.

“I had to talk to Reiner eventually,” Connie continued, “And it _really sucked_ but it’s better now and I couldn’t avoid it forever. You can’t avoid it forever.”

Jean didn’t respond. Connie panicked.

“You also need to buy more groceries, probably.”

That enticed another snort, and a half-hearted punch.

“Just tell him you didn’t come back immediately because I needed help setting up cable, try to recover from losing your shit, and, well,” Connie said, “And pretend everything’s normal?”

At the least, Jean nodded. Connie sighed, the odd tension of not knowing how to handle Jean crying being relieved.

“Alright, cool,” Connie said, patting Jean on the shoulder, “Gimme your wallet, I’ll go buy groceries.”

“I can buy groceries myself,” Jean mumbled. He ran his hand down his face, then gave Connie a bleary look of confusion.

Connie grinned, “Well, thing is, I do actually need my TV set up.”

“...asshole.” He should have anticipated that.

“What do you want me to pick up, as you are so generously fixing my cable,” Connie said, and Jean dejectedly handed him his wallet.

Jean thought for a moment, “Actual food. Like, pasta and cheese and bisquick and shit. If you buy anything frozen I will maim you.”

Connie snorted; he wouldn’t consider that actual food.

Rolling his eyes at the snort, Jean added, “And eggs. Buy the freshest eggs Wal-Mart has.”

* * *

Everything smoothed out easily, just as Connie had said they would. He went home, no longer egg-coated, told Marco that he’d fixed Connie’s TV, and continued on their dating-but-not-official relationship.

He wondered, for a while, why Marco himself hadn’t said anything, and deduced that Marco probably understood Jean’s trepidations over the matter, mostly because Jean thought Marco knew him more than he knew himself sometimes.   
It felt partially like a relief, partially like he was, yet again, the slow one to improve.

He told himself it didn’t matter, and it probably did, but it didn’t matter because they were back at Dunkin Donuts, being the singular people there, as always, ordering the same drinks, as always.

Marco got another box of jelly-filled donuts, Jean ordered his same drink, and Ilse wrote another sardonic comment on it. It was normal, almost stagnant, and it felt like their normal, date-but-not-really-date scenarios.

Until they weren’t the only ones in the normally desolate Dunkin Donuts.

The ringing of the bell was a foreign sound; Jean saw the intruders before Marco had. Marco hadn’t turned around, instead watching Jean with a curious expression that quickly turned to shock as Jean went pale.

It was the traffic jam guy. It was the traffic jam guy, with one lonely other in his company, both armed and completely lost as to what they were doing armed in a Dunkin Donuts. The loud, protestor-of-taxes-despite-not-being-in-district guy, who had gone on Ymir and Christa’s shit list, had, apparently, been propelled to create a shitlist of his own.

And it was one of the most absurd, most terrifying things, to realize that the asshole manager for the Dunkin Donuts in the next district over had had enough of Ymir and Christa’s shit to barge into their Dunkin Donuts, for whatever reason he wasn’t going to question because he didn’t have the time to.

“Fuck,” Jean said; he had been meaning for duck, he had really been meaning for duck but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Marco had the foresight to turn around, and stare at the intruders with matching shock, but neither of them had a chance to say anything more.

“I need to talk to Erwin Smith,” said the manager, holding a shaky gun towards Ilse, who looked as terrified as all of them felt, “I need to talk to Erwin Smith, and you three are my hostages.”

* * *

The three of them were tied up in the back room; whatever chance they had to escape before they were tied up had fled. Marco had been tied uncomfortably to a donut rack, Jean to a nearby frosting table, and Ilse across from Jean to another donut rack.

Both of the criminals had left, to check the perimeter of the donut store to make sure it was secure enough for their poorly thought out hostage attempt.

The room fell quiet. Marco, through gritted teeth, as being tied to a donut rack wasn’t comfortable with an arm out of commision, said, “They want to talk to Erwin.”

Jean laughed nervously; it wasn’t fitting for the situation but it slightly quelled his panic, “Well, that’s not going to fucking happen, he’s off at some dumbass workshop.”

“Do you think they’ll actually follow through?” Marco prompted; it was second-nature conversation, and it was an oddly obvious question that Jean didn’t think suited the moment, as they were zip-tied to a donut rack and table.

“They won’t fucking mean to, but they will. They’re desperate, idiotic, and have the potential to shoot just because they’re rash and don’t know what they’re doing,” Jean rushed out his words in an echo, “They have no clue what they’re doing at all.”

Marco didn’t respond, staring off to the other end of the inside of Dunkin Donuts, towards Ilse and her donut rack.

“There’s little chance they’ll get what they want because I don’t think Levi’s going to be able to pull Erwin out of his ass, so-”

Marco interrupted suddenly, “-Now’s not the time for innuendos, Jean.”

That created a stop for Jean to figure out what, exactly, he’d said that was an innuendo, and Marco filled the blank, evidently his motive for the comment, “We can get out of here, alright?”

Jean laughed nervously again, and Marco spoke over the noise, “We’re not alone in this, we can trust Ilse, alright?”

“All we know about her is she hates me and writes insults on my coffee cups that I don’t really understand half the time-”

“- _no_ , not just that. Jean, look at her, she’s been texting the entire time.”

“Eh,” Jean said, looking over to Ilse. Granted, she looked terrified still, unable to stop herself from crying, but sure enough, despite her hands being tied behind her back and to a donut rack, Jean could make out the tapping of texting on an oldass flip phone.

“I mean. I think she’s been documenting the entire thing, or at least notifying the force, so we can trust her with a plan,” Marco continued.

Jean wasn’t really convinced, but figured he could trust her by proxy, so he didn’t voice any dissent.

“And,” Marco said, with some hesitation, “And she looks like Ymir. You said that, first day we met her-”

“-yeah, sure, she looks like the asshole _who got us into this situation_ -”

“-and she’s the _perfect distraction_.”

Another pause, “Oh.”

“I mean- I mean, we’ll have to trust the fact that if she can pull it off, and you know, give them reason not to just shoot, and hope she can pull that off, and it’s risking a lot, and by a lot I mean a lot. We need to split up the gunmen and use another distraction, one for each of them so we can take them out without any collateral damage, but seeing as we’re sort of tied up at the moment,” Marco trailed off.

Jean looked ahead. He had expected more, and he had expected that Marco was at a place where he wouldn’t have any lingering doubt, and he babbled in support, “I mean, sure. I trust you, it’s a good plan, you should probably continue with the plan-”

“-move your hand to the left-”

“-eh,” Jean stopped, but nevertheless moved his hands, as much as he could when they were tied to a table.

Marco turned, and looked at Jean’s hands, “Other left.”

“Okay,” Jean said, moving his hands until Marco made a small noise of approval.

Then, without any warning, Marco leaned forward, taking the donut rack with him, and used his good shoulder to shove the donut rack on its wheels, right toward the bit of plastic connecting Jean’s hands to the table leg.

Jean yelped in pain, and donuts flew off the rack to the ground. One smeared across his face, leaving a chocolate trail. Marco hadn’t given an explanation for his actions, instead huffing through his teeth.

Not knowing what was going on, Jean threw his hands over his head, “Thanks, now we’ll die, _buried in donuts_.”

Then, he realized that his hands were free, and over his head.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” he said. Marco hadn’t doubted his own plan, just come up with a new one.

Marco laughed, then hissed in pain; it hadn’t been taxless to perform that maneuver

“Christa taught me how to get out of zip-ties, not exactly the same way, but-”

“- _When_ , when have you ever had the time-”

“-Jean, I tried to explain, you just thought we were knitting-”

“- _it’s not exactly conventional to have a study group on how to get yourself out of zip ties_ -”

“-it isn’t conventional to knit, or crochet, with zip ties either-”

“- _knitting semantics_.”

Marco laughed again, and Jean started to move to return the favor, but before he could, the back entrance to the store flew open, and Jean pulled back to pretend that he was still attached to the leg of the table.

“The police are already here, they’re already out front, they’re going to come in unless I have some proof of the fact that you’re here,” the district-over manager yelled in a panic, his lackey following behind, “One of you contacted them, one of you assholes contacted them-”

He looked over to Ilse, and Ilse didn’t stop texting, and the tapping button noises continued convictingly. She had, evidently, been the one to contact the police, and it would become obvious very quickly.

However, before he could figure it out, Marco quipped, “-well, we’re sort of late to work.

They would notice that.”

Jean glared ahead; he knew what was happening and he didn’t want it to be happening. Marco was setting himself up as bait, as the other distraction from his plan. The other distraction, to split up the gunmen so Jean could be the one to take them down, one by one, since now his hands were free.

It had been what Marco was getting to, the plan he had undeniable confidence in even though judging criminals wasn’t his forte. It would work, but there was an undeniable amount of risk and trust from Marco that Jean wouldn’t fuck up his part of the plan, and Jean had no idea if he had that trust in himself.

But he didn’t have much of a choice.

“You,” said the manager, staring at Marco. Jean bit down on his tongue, and gripped the leg of the table so it looked like he was still attached. “You’re the injured one, aren’t you?”

Marco didn’t respond; it would be convicting to, and even though he wanted to be convicting he couldn’t be obvious.

“Keep your gun on the girl,” the manager directed his accomplice, and stalked over to Marco, taking out a knife and snapping off the zipties.

Pulling Marco up by his injured arm, the manager raised his gun to Marco’s forehead, and without another word, took him out to the front of the shop, outside of the gaze of the kitchen,  to use as a bargaining chip with the police that had already arrived.

Jean swallowed thickly, momentarily losing the plan in his head. It was another hostage situation; if that hadn’t sunk in yet, it certainly did now, with Marco being taken and out of the picture.

The accomplice continued to keep a shaky gun on Ilse, and she continued to stare ahead, hands behind her back texting.

Jean had no idea if she would be able to shift from texting rampantly to being an effective distraction, but he didn’t have an option, so he went into the situation blind, “Hey, Ymir, can’t you just confess to being a fucking asshole and that this is all your fault and get me out of this?”

Both Ilse and the gunman turned to Jean, and the gun lowered slightly. Trying not to let his surprise and relief show on his face, Jean continued, “You know! Your plan for this mess. You’re not going to leave them hanging for what you’ve set up for them.”

It’s cliche; it’s a villain admits their evil plan speech, but Jean figured that cliches would work in the absurdity.

Ilse looked like she was about to cry, and Jean could feel his heart drop, but then she turned to the accomplice and said, “Yeah, organ bag, you better put down that gun or else I won’t tell you what my friend has got planned for _you_.”

And the accomplice fell for it, setting down the gun slowly to the ground and Jean didn’t waste another second. Jolting away from the table with as much precision as he could muster, Jean launched himself at the accomplice, tackling him to the ground.

Unfortunately, he’d missed his mark by a hair, and the accomplice managed to untangle himself from Jean’s grip and try to reach for the gun, but just as he almost gripped it Ilse kicked him in the head.

The man went still, and Jean rummaged through his pockets, found zip ties, and tied him to a donut rack.

“ _You asshole_ ,” Ilse hissed as Jean’s hands shook, “You almost got us killed, I thought you were a cop-”

“- _I just saved your life_ -”

“- _You almost got me killed_ -”

“ _Fine_. I’m an asshole,” Jean said, not paying much attention to the conversation, since this was only one gunman down. He still had one more to go, and one more to go meant the one who had Marco as his hostage, and that drained his attention more than anything.

With trepidation, he grabbed the gun that the accomplice had set down, handling it in a shaky grip. He didn’t want this to be an option, but knowing his life it was probably the only one.

Giving the unconscious accomplice one last look over, Jean slotted the gun between his fingers and moved out of the back of the kitchen and into the register area slowly, looking over the counter and his gut dropped.

The manager had, predictably, copied every crime show in existence, shoving Marco in front of him as a barrier between him and the police. His own hand shook as he held the gun to Marco’s head; he hadn’t meant for it to get this far, but there he was, with the power of life and death between his fingertips and no idea what to do with it.

There wasn’t an opening to shoot from outside the store, so everyone outside had to sit and wait for a bargain or for a gunshot.

Yet, from Jean’s angled position from behind the counter, he had a shot, at least enough so that he could clip the guy’s hand and force him to drop the gun.

Jean had been in this position before, and last time he’d made the wrong decision to not shoot, and the time before that he’d made the wrong decision to shoot, and his gut feeling went to making the shot but churning doubt said to wait it out.

There was a slight movement up front, and the manager’s hand moved again, finger pressed over the trigger. The man had no idea what he was doing; he probably didn’t even want to shoot, but his hands shook over the trigger and the safety wasn’t on..

Jean swallowed; he wasn’t prepared for this at all, Marco had tried to help but it was only one afternoon at the shooting range with one bullseye, and yet life seemed to shove him into positions he wasn’t prepared for and put everything to lose on the line.

But he had to make a decision and he had to take a risk, he can’t avoid it any longer, so he fought against the knotting feeling in the pit of his stomach, counted down in his head, raised his gun and shot.

Jean heard the shot ring out, and the gun kick back, and he kept his hand steady and probably followed through more than needed. He could hear the manager screaming, and glass shattering, and something hit the floor but he wasn’t sure what, and then he thought he heard more but it was just his own heart pounding in his ears.

Blinking and taking a slow breath, Jean lowered the gun, dropped it to the ground, and looked past the counter. He couldn’t make out much; whatever people on the force they had sent were streaming into the room and shoving cuffs on the injured manager, which was probably against regulation, but the fate of some poorly-planned-vengeance-seeking manager wasn’t his priority at the moment.

The chaos unfolded around him, and as his adrenaline faded he focused on his priority at the moment and tried to search through the movement in front of him for Marco but couldn’t see him at all.

Frozen in place, he didn’t notice that Marco had pushed himself through the hoard of cops to the behind the counter.

“Jean,” Marco said carefully, and Jean jumped, turned, and let out a sharp breath.

Still tense and now nearly shaking, Jean looked at Marco and, slowly, reached out a hand and placed two fingers on Marco’s neck, looking for a pulse, finding it, and then said, “Holy shit.”

Marco laughed shakily, “Holy shit.” He reached out, placing a hand behind Jean’s head and another behind his back, pulling him into a hug. Slowly, he released a tense breath, and despite trying to find words, found none, and just held Jean against him.

“Holy shit,” Jean said again, and gripped the back of Marco’s shirt in a clenched fist, “Holy fucking shit.”

* * *

Naturally, both of them got on work leave for the event. Both the manager and the accomplice had been caught, and the while the paperwork was immense, the damages were minimal.

After the force managed to disentangle the two of them and send them to the medics for a clean bill of health, with anti climatic calmness, Jean pulled his car out of the Dunkin Donuts parking lot and back to their apartment for yet another leave.

Not having said much other than “holy shit” since they’d been cleared to head back, both Jean and Marco sat on the couch, with Jean leaning against the armrest and draping his legs over Marco’s lap, and Marco placing a hand on Jean’s leg and leaning into the couch as if it could swallow him whole.

“I think,” Marco said, and Jean leaned up from the armrest, “I think Dunkin Donuts will probably be closed tomorrow.”

Jean leaned back into the armrest, staring at the ceiling, “We sort of killed it, Marco. I think I shot out a window. You destroyed a good stock of donuts.”

Marco hummed, and an odd but comfortable silence fell over them again.

“We probably need to find a new restaurant,” Jean said, and Marco hummed again. 

And Jean had no idea where he was going with this, or what would happen after this point, but he figured he’d already put Marco’s life on the line and that didn’t end poorly, so he could ignore his self-inflicted silence and refusal to look into the future. He could mess up, they could mess up, but he had to trust that they wouldn’t.

“We could go somewhere else, for like a date,” Jean said, and Marco looked over curiously, “Like an actual date. Official date, not not-official dates that are dates but are also not official.”

“You’re rambling,” Marco said, and Jean kicked him.

“Asshole,” Jean muttered, and Marco laughed lightly.

“Yeah, we can go somewhere on an actual date,” Marco replied, and set his hand back onto Jean’s leg, “I have to approve of the restaurant, though.”

Jean snorted, “I have good taste.”

“What were you going to suggest?”

“Uh,” Jean hadn’t gotten that far, “Denny’s?”

Marco leaned forward, shoulder shaking, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Shut up,” Jean said,shifting his legs and displacing Marco’s hand, “Shut up.”

The room quieted again, and Marco calmed and leaned back into the couch, then shifted to parallel Jean’s armrest-leaning position. “We can figure out the details later.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jean said. It felt anticlimactic, if he was being honest; there was a certain level of grandeur he’d anticipated from this conversation, from how difficult it was to get to that point, but it wasn’t a bad thing.

It wasn’t a bad thing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this entire thing was for an 'attack on dunkins.'


End file.
